Ghetto comedies

•

purcbasefc for tbe Xibrars of tbe

THni\>er0it\> of Toronto
out of fbe proceeds of tbe funfc

bequeatbefc bp
B. Ipbillipe Stewart, B,H

OB. A.D. 1892.

Ghetto Comedies

By

Israel Zangwill

Author of

The Grey Wig,' 'Dreamers of the Ghetto/

'The Master,' 'Children of the Ghetto,'

4 Ghetto Tragedies,' etc.

; Illustrations by J. H. Amscbewitz

London

William Heinemann

1907

PI?

Copyright by William Heinemann, 1907

TO
MY OLD FRIEND

M. D. EDER

NOTE

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the publication of these
' Ghetto Comedies ' a fresh edition of my
' Ghetto Tragedies ' is issued, with the original
title restored. In the old definition a comedy
could be distinguished from a tragedy by its
happy ending. Dante's Hell and Purgatory
could thus appertain to a ' comedy/ This is
a crude conception of the distinction between
Tragedy and Comedy, which I have ventured
to disregard, particularly in the last of these
otherwise unassuming stories.

I. Z.
SHOTTERMILL,

April, 1907.

CONTENTS

THE MODEL OF SORROWS I

ANGLICIZATION - 49

THE JEWISH TRINITY 89

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 119

THE RED MARK - 173

THE BEARER OF BURDENS - 193

THE LUFTMENSCH 225

THE TUG OF LOVE 249

THE YIDDISH * HAMLET ' 259

THE CONVERTS 293

.1OLY WEDLOCK 313

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 335

THE HIRELINGS 35!

SAMOOBORONA - - 375

Vll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AT LAST I SAID ' GOOD MORNING ' - Frontispiece

To face page
'I WORK ON— ON SHABBOS' - 142

4 YOU COMPARE MY WIFE TO A KANGAROO !' - - 276

THE JEWS SCATTERED BEFORE HIM LIKE DOGS - 408

THE MODEL OF SORROWS

THE MODEL OF SORROWS

CHAPTER I

HOW I FOUND THE MODEL

I CANNOT pretend that my ambition to paint the Man
of Sorrows had any religious inspiration, though I fear
my dear old dad at the Parsonage at first took it as a
sign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist, I have
always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual
and the beautiful ; for I have ever held that the beauti-
ful has in it the same infinite element as forms the
essence of religion. But I cannot explain very in-
telligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only instru-
ment through which I can speak. And if I am here
paradoxically proposing to use my pen to explain what
my brush failed to make clear, it is because the criticism
with which my picture of the Man of Sorrows has been
assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal elucida-
tion. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate ;
perhaps my pen can manage to say the other half,
especially as this other half mainly consists of things
told me and things seen.

And in the first place, let me explain that the con-
ception of the picture which now hangs in its gilded
frame is far from the conception with which I started

3 i—2

4 GHETTO COMEDIES

— was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an evolution — for
I began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image
a realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue
of Jerusalem, or walked about the shores of Galilee.
As a painter in love with the modern, it seemed to me
that, despite the innumerable representations of Him
by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought
their inspiration in reality. Each nation had uncon-
sciously given Him its own national type, and though
there was a subtle truth in this, for what each nation
worshipped was truly the God made over again in its
own highest image, this was not the truth after which
I was seeking.

I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type
which Da Vinci and others have imposed upon the
world, for Christ, to begin with, must be a Jew. And
even when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish
model, I became aware that there were blonde types,
too, these seemed to me essentially Teutonic. A
characteristic of the Oriental face, as I figured it, was
a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the
very antithesis of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The
characteristic Jewish face must suggest more of the
Arab than of the Goth.

I do not know if the lay reader understands how
momentous to the artist is his model, how dependent
he is on the accident of finding his creation already
anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in Nature. To
me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find
in Nature the original, without which no artist can
ever produce those subtle nuances which give the full
sense of life. After which, if I say, that my aim is
not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I sup-

HOW I FOUND THE MODEL

pose I shall again seem to be self -contradictory.
But that, again, must be put down to my fumbling
pen-strokes.

Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search
of the ideal model, but then my father's failing health
kept me within a brief railway run of the Parsonage.
Besides, I understood that the dispersion of the Jews
everywhere made it possible to find Jewish types any-
where, and especially in London, to which flowed all
the streams of the Exile. But long days of hunt-
ing in the Jewish quarter left me despairing. I could
find types of all the Apostles, but never of the Master.
Running down one week-end to Brighton to recupe-
rate, I joined the Church Parade on the lawns. It was
a sunny morning in early November, and I admired
the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky,
making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the
stuccoed boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered
amid the vast crowd of promenaders like a swarm of
brilliant butterflies. I noted with amusement that
the Church Parade was guarded by beadles from the
intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-
dressed Jews paradoxically partaking in it reminded
me of the object of my search. In vain my eye roved
among these ; their figures were strangely lacking in
the dignity and beauty which I had found among the
poorest. Suddenly I came upon a sight that made
my heart leap. There, squatting oddly enough on the
pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat a
frowsy, gaber dined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny
green cockle-shell hat on his head and the long un-
combed black beard was the face of my desire. The
head was bowed towards the earth ; it did not even

6 GHETTO COMEDIES

turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle
was beadle-barred. I was about to accost this strange
creature who sat there so immovably, when a vener-
able Royal Academician who resides at Hove came
towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore
me along in the stream of his conversation and geniality.
I looked back yearningly ; it was as if the Academy
was dragging me away from true Art.

4 1 think, if you don't mind, I'll get that old chap's
address,' I said.

He looked back and shook his head in laughing
reproof.

* Another study in dirt and ugliness ! Oh, you
youngsters !'

My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with
his own conventional patterns and prettinesses.

1 Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,' I
retorted. * I certainly did not see Him in the Church
Parade.'

* Have you gone on the religious lay now ?' he asked,
with a burst of his bluff laughter.

4 No, but I'm going,' I said, and turned back.

I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but
furtively studying my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure,
so strangely seated on the pavement, I had chanced
on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery
of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at
the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a
pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld
the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the
West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I won-
dered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were
they content with his abstention from the holy ground

HOW I FOUND THE MODEL 7

of the Church Parade, and the less sacred seats on the
promenade without, or would they, if their eyes drew
towards him, move him on from further profaning
those frigidly respectable windows and stuccoed
portals ?

At last I said ; * Good-morning.' And he rose hur-
riedly and began to move away uncomplainingly, as
one used to being hounded from everywhere.

' Gut en M or gen,' I said in German, with a happy
inspiration, for in my futile search in London I had
found that a corrupt German called Yiddish usually
proved a means of communication.

He paused, as if reassured. ' Gut' M or gen* he mur-
mured ; and then I saw that his stature was kingly,
like that of the sons of Anak, and his manner a strange
blend of majesty and humility.

' Pardon me,' I went on, in my scrupulously worst
German, ' may I ask you a question ?'

He made a curious movement of acquiescence, com-
pounded of a shrug and a slight uplifting of his palms.

c Are you in need of work ?'

' And why do you wish to know ?' he replied, answer-
ing, as I had already found was the Jewish way, one
question by another.

' 1 thought I could find you some,' I said.

' Have you scrolls of the Law for me to write ?' he
replied incredulously. ' You are not even a Jew.'

' Still, there may be something,' I replied. ' Let us
walk along.'

I felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us
both, and I hurried my model down a side-street. I
noticed he hobbled as if footsore. He did not under-
stand what I wanted, but he understood a pound a

8 GHETTO COMEDIES

week, for he was starving, and wrhen I said he must
leave Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck : ' It
is the finger of God.' For in London were his wife
and children.

His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia.

The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel
Quarriar's presence dignified the studio. It was
thrilling and stimulating to see his noble figure and
tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like
a prophet's.

6 It is the finger of God,' I, too, murmured, and fell
to work, exalted.

I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence — perhaps
the model's silence was contagious — but gradually
through the days I grew to communion with his shy
soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I give his
story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I often
paused to take down, when they were characteristic.

CHAPTER II

THE MODEL'S STORY

*

I CAME here because Russia had grown intolerable to
me. All my life, and during the lives of my parents,
we Quarriars had been innkeepers, and thereby earned
our bread. But Russia took away our livelihood for
herself, and created a monopoly. Thus we were left
destitute. So what could I do with a large family ?
Of London and America I had long heard as places
where they have compassion on foreigners. They are

THE MODEL'S STORY 9

not countries like Russia, where Truth exists not.
Secondly, my children also worried me greatly. They
are females, all the five, and a female in Russia, how-
ever beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no
dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however
uncongenial the man may be. These things conspired
to drive me from Russia. So I turned everything into
money, and realized three hundred and fifty roubles.
People had told me that the whole journey to London
should cost us two hundred roubles, so I concluded I
should have one hundred and fifty roubles with which
to begin life in the new country. It was very bitter to
me to leave my Fatherland, but as the moujik says :
4 Necessity brings everything.' So we parted from our
friends with many tears : little had we thought we
should be so broken up in our old age. But what else
could I do in such a wretched country ? As the moujik
says : ' If the goat doesn't want to go to market it is
compelled to go.' So I started for London. We
travelled to Isota on the Austrian frontier. As we
sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we
were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in
came a benevolent-looking Jew with a long venerable
beard, two very long ear-locks, and a girdle round his
waist, washed his hands ostentatiously at the station
tap, prayed aloud the Asher Yotzer with great fervour,
and on finishing his prayer looked everyone expectantly
in the eyes, and all responded ' Amen.' Then he drew
up his coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended
his hand, gave me an effusive ' Shalom Aleichem,' and
asked me how it went with me. Soon he began to
talk about the frontier. Said he : 'As you see me, an
Ish kosher (a ritually correct man), I will do you a

io GHETTO COMEDIES

kindness, not for money, but for the sake of the
Mitzvah (good deed).' I began to smell a rat, and
thought to myself, How comes it that you know I
want the frontier ? Your kindness is suspicious, for,
as the moujik says ; c The devil has guests.' But if we
need the thief, we cut him down even from the gallows.
Such a necessary rascal proved Elzas Kazelia. I
asked him how much he wanted to smuggle me across.
He answered thus : ' I see that you are a clever respec-
table man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and
you will understand that you will receive fair treat-
ment from me. I want to earn a Mitzvah (good deed)
and a little money thereby.'

Then he cautioned me not to leave the station and
go out into the street, because in the street were to be
found Jews without beards, who would inform on me
and give me up to the police. ' The world does not
contain a sea of Kazelias,' said he. (Would that it
did not contain even that one !)

Then he continued : ' Shake out your money on the
table, and we will see how much you have, and I will
change it for you.'

' Oh,' said I, ' I want first to find out the rate of
exchange.'

When Kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring
and shrieked ' Hoi, hoi ! On account of Jews like you;
the Messhiach (Messiah) can't come, and the Redemp-
tion of Israel is delayed. If you go out into the street,
you will find a Jew without a beard, -who wi^jcharge
youjmore, and even take all your money away. I swear
to you, as I should wish to see Messhiach Ben David,
that I want to earn no money. I only desire your
good, and so to lay up a little Mitzvah in heaven.'

THE MODEL1 S STORY 11

Thereupon I changed my money with him. After-
wards I found that he had swindled me to the extent
of fifteen roubles. Elzas Kazelia is like to the Russian
forest robber, who waylays even the peasant.

We began to talk further about the frontier. He
wanted eighty roubles, and swore by his kosher Ytd-
dishkeit (ritually pure Judaism) that the affair would
cost him seventy-five.

Thereupon I became sorely troubled, because I had
understood it would only cost us twenty roubles for all
of us, and so I told him. Said he ; ' If you seek others
with short beards, they will take twice as much from
you.' But I went out into the street to seek a second
murderer. The second promised to do it cheaper,
said that Kazelia was a robber, and promised to meet
me at the railway station.

Immediately I left, Elzas Kazelia, the kosher Jew,
went to the police, and informed them that I and my
family were running away from Russia, and were going
to London ; and we were at once arrested, and thrown
bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an
iron grating in the door. No food or drink was allowed
us, as though we were the greatest criminals. Such
is Russian humanity, to starve innocent people. The
tUttle provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us from
.fainting with hunger. On the second day Kazelia
•sent two Jews with beards. Suddenly I heard the
door unlock, and they appeared saying : ' We have
icome to do you a favour, but not for nothing. If your
-life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we
advise you to give the police seventy roubles, and we
want ten roubles for our kindness, and you must employ
Kazelia to take you over the frontier for eighty roubles,

12 GHETTO COMEDIES

otherwise the police will not be bribed. If you refuse,
you are lost.'

Well, how could I answer ? How could one give
away the last kopeck and arrive penniless in a strange
land ? Every rouble taken from us was like a piece of
our life. So my people and I began to weep and to
beg for pity. ' Have compassion,' we cried. Answered
they : ' In a frontier town compassion dwells not.
Give money. That will bring compassion.' And they
slammed the door, and we were locked in once more.
Tears and cries helped nothing. My children wept
agonizedly. Oh, truth, truth ! Russia, Russia ! How
scurvily you handle the guiltless ! For an enlightened
land to be thus !

4 Father, father,' the children said, ' give away
everything so that we die not in this cell of fear and
hunger.'

But even had I wished, I could do nothing from
behind barred doors. Our shouting was useless. At
last I attracted a warder who was watching in the
corridor. * Bring me a Jew,' I cried ; ' I wish to tell
him of our plight.' And he answered : ' Hold your
peace if you don't want your teeth knocked out.
Recognise that you are a prisoner. You know well
what is required of you.'

Yes, I thought, my money or my life.
.^Gif.the third day our sufferings became almost in-
supportable, and the Russian cold seized on our bodies,
and our strength began to fail. We looked upon the
cell as our tomb, and on Kazelia as the Angel of Death.
Here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. We lost
hope of seeing the sun. For well we know Russia.
Who seeks Truth finds Death more easily. As the

THE MODEL'S STORY 13

Russian proverb says, ' If you want to know Truth,
you will know Death.'

At length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries,
and brought again the two Jews. ' For the last time
we tell you. Give us money, and we will do you a
kindness. We have been seized with compassion for
your family.'

So I said no more, but gave them all they asked, and
Elzas Kazelia came and said to me rebukingly : ' It is
a characteristic of the Jew never to part with his money
unless chastised.' I said to Elzas Kazelia : ' I thought
you were an honourable, pious Jew. How could you
treat a poor family so ?'

He answered me : ' An honourable, pious Jew must
also make a little money.'

Thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent
for a conveyance. No sooner had we seated ourselves
than he demanded six roubles. Well, what could I do?
I had fallen among thieves, and must part with my
money. We drove to a small room, and remained there
two hours, for which we had to pay three roubles, as the
preparations for our crossing were apparently incom-
plete. When we finally got to the frontier — in this
case a shallow river — they warned us not even to
sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot with-
out more ado. I had to strip in order to wade through
the water, and several men carried over my faiml} .
My two bundles, with all my belongings, consisting of
clothes and household treasures, remained, however,
on the Russian side. Suddenly a wild disorder arose.
4 The soldiers ! The soldiers ! Hide! Hide! In the
bushes ! In the bushes !'

When all was still again — though no soldiers became

14 GHETTO COMEDIES

visible — the men went back for the baggage, but
brought back only one bundle. The other, worth over
a hundred roubles, had disappeared. Wailing helped
nothing. Kazelia said : ' Hold your peace. Here, too,
dangers lurk.'

I understood the game, but felt completely helpless
in his hands. He drove us to his house, and our re-
maining bundle was deposited there. Later, when I
walked into the town, I went to the Rabbi and com-
plained. Said he : ' What can I do with such mur-
derers ? You must reconcile yourself to the loss.'

I went back to my family at Kazelia's house, and he
cautioned me against going into the street. On my
way I had met a man who said he would charge twenty-
eight roubles each for our journey to London. So
Kazelia was evidently afraid I might yet fall into
honest er hands.

Then we began to talk with him of London, for it is
better to deal with the devil you know than the devil
you don't know. Said he : 'It will cost you thirty-
three roubles each.' I said : ' I have had an offer of
twenty-eight roubles, but you I will give thirty.'
' Hoi, hoi /' shrieked he. ' On a Jew a lesson is lost.
It is just as at the frontier : you wouldn't give eighty
roubles, and it cost you double. You want the same
again. One daren't do a Jew a favour.'

So I held my peace, and accepted his terms. But I
saw I should be twenty-five roubles short of what was
required to finish the journey. Said Kazelia : c I can
do you a favour : I can borrow twenty-five roubles on
your luggage at the railway, and when you get to
London you can repay.' And he took the bundle^ and
conveyed it to the railway. What he did there I know

THE MODEL'S STORY 15

not. He came back, and told me he had done me a
turn. (This time it seemed a good one.) He then took
envelopes, and placed in each the amount I was to pay
at each stage of the journey. So at last we took train
and rode off. And at each place I paid the dues from
its particular envelope. The children were offered food
by our fellow-passengers, though they could only take
it when it was kosher, and this enabled us to keep our
pride. There was one kind Jewess from Lemberg with
a heart of gold and delicious rings of sausages.

When we arrived at Leipsic they told me the amount
was twelve marks short. So we missed our train, not
knowing what to do, as I had now no money whatever
but what was in the envelopes. The officials ordered
us from the station. So we went out and walked about
Leipsic ; we attracted the suspicion of the police, and
they wanted to arrest us. But we pleaded our inno-
cence, and they let us go. So we retired into a narrow
dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told
each other not to murmur. We sat together through
the whole rainy night, the rain mingling with our tears.

When day broke I thought of a plan. I took twelve
marks from the envelope containing the ship's money,
and ran back to the station, and took tickets to Rotter-
dam, and so got to the end of our overland journey.
When we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed
like cattle. One of the Kazelia conspirators — for his
arm reaches over Europe — called us into his office/ and
said : ' How much money have you ?' I shook out the
money from the envelopes on the table. Said he :
' The amount is twelve marks short.' He had had
advices, he said, from Kazelia that I would bring a
certain amount, and I didn't have it.

16 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Here you can stay to-night. To-morrow you go
back.' So he played on my ignorance, for I was paying
at every stage in excess of the legal fares. But I knew
not what powers he had. Every official was a possible
disaster. We hardly lived till the day.

Then I began to beg him to take my Tallis and
Tephillin (praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the
twelve marks. Said he : ' I have no use for them ;
you must go back.' With difficulty I got his permission
to go out into the town, and I took my Tallis and
Tephillin t and went into a Shool (synagogue), and I
begged someone to buy them. But a good man came
up, and would not permit the sale. He took out
twelve marks and gave them to me. I begged him to
give me his address that I might be able to repay him.
Said he : ' I desire neither thanks nor money.' Thus
was I able to replace the amount lacking.

We embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing
in money. We arrived in London at nine o'clock in
the morning, penniless and without luggage, whereas I
had calculated to have at least one hundred and fifty
roubles and my household stuff. I had a friend's
address, and we all went to look for him, but found
that he had left London for America. We walked
about all day till eight o'clock at night. The children
could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness.
At last we sat down on the steps of a house in Wellclose
Square. I looked about, and saw a building which I
took to be a Shool (synagogue), as there were Hebrew
posters stuck outside. I approached it. An odd Jew
with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began
to speak with me. I understood soon what sort of a
person he was, and turned away. This Meshummad

THE MODEL'S STORY 17

(converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with
offers of food and drink for the family, and further help.
I said : * I want nothing of you, nor do I desire your
acquaintance.'

' I went back to my family. The children sat crying
for food. They attracted the attention of a man,
Baruch Zezangski (25, Ship Alley), and he went away,
returning with bread and fish. When the children
saw this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the
man's hand to kiss it. Meanwhile darkness fell, and
there was nowhere to pass the night. So I begged the
man to find me a lodging for the night. He led us to
a cellar in Ship Alley. It was pitch black. They say
there is a hell. This may or may not be, but more of
a hell than the night we passed in this cellar one does
not require. Every vile thing in the world seemed to
have taken up its abode therein. We sat the whole
night sweeping the vermin from us. After a year of
horror — as it seemed — came the dawn. In the morning
entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. I had
not a farthing, but I had a leather bag which I gave him
for the night's lodging. I begged him to let me a room
in the house. So he let me a small back room upstairs,
the size of a table, at three and sixpence a week. He
relied on our collecting his rent from the kind-hearted.

We entered the empty room with joy, and sat down
on the floor. We remained the whole day without
bread. The children managed to get a crust now and
again from other lodgers, but all day long they cried
for food, and at night they cried because they had
nothing to sleep on. I asked our landlord if he knew of
any work we could do. He said he would see what
could be done. Next day he went out, and returned

2

1 8 GHETTO COMEDIES

with a heap of linen to be washed. The family set to
work at once, but I am sure my wife washed the things
less with water than with tears. Oh, Kazelia ! We
washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing
bread and washing. At the end of the week he said :
' You have worked out your rent, and have nothing to
pay.' I should think not indeed !

My eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a
place at a tailor's for four shillings a week, and the
others sought washing and scrubbing. So each day
we had bread, and at the end of the week rent. Bread
and water alone formed our sustenance. But we were
very grateful all the same. When the holidays came
on, my daughter fell out of work. I heard a word
' slack.' I inquired, c What is the meaning of the word
" slack " ?' Then my daughter told me that it means
schlecht (bad). There is nothing to be earned. Now,
what should I do ? I had no means of living. The
children cried for bread and something to sleep on.
Still we lived somehow till Rosh Hashanah (New Year),
hoping it would indeed be a New Year.

It was Erev Yomtov (the day before the holiday), and
no washing was to be had. We struggled as before
death. The landlord of the house came in. He said
to me : ' Aren't you ashamed ? Can't you see your
children have scarcely strength to live ? Why have
you not compassion on your little ones ? Go to the
Charity Board. There you will receive help.' Believe
me, I would rather have died. But the little ones were
starving, and their cries wrung me. So I went to a
Charity Board. I said, weeping : ' My children are
perishing for a morsel of bread. I can no longer look
upon their sufferings.' And the Board answered :

THE MODEL'S STORY 19

* After Yomtov we will send you back to Russia.' ' But
meanwhile,' I answered, ' the children want food.'
Whereupon one of the Board struck a bell, and in came
a stalwart Angel of Death, who seized me by the arm
so that it ached ail day, and thrust me through the
door. I went out, my eyes blinded with tears, so
that I could not see where I went. It was long before
I found my way back to Ship Alley. My wife and
daughters already thought I had drowned myself for
trouble. Such was our plight the Eve of the Day of
Atonement, and not a morsel of bread to ' take in '
the fast with ! But just at the worst a woman from
next door came in, and engaged one of my daughters
to look after a little child during the fast (while she
was in the synagogue) at a wage of tenpence, paid in
advance. With joy we expended it all on bread, and
then we prayed that the Day of Atonement should
endure long, so that we could fast long, and have no
need to buy food ; for as the moujik says, ' If one had
no mouth, one could wear a golden coat.'

I went to the Jews' Free School, which was turned
into a synagogue, and passed the whole day in tearful
supplication. When I came home at night my wife
sat and wept. I asked her why she wept. She
answered : ' Why have you led me to such a land, where
even prayer costs money — at least, for women ? The
whole day I went from one Shool to another, but they
would not let me in. At last I went to the Shool of the
" Sons of the Soul," where pray the pious Jews, with
beards and ear-locks, and even there I was not allowed
in. The heathen policeman begged for me, and said to
them : " Shame on you not to let the poor woman in."
The Gabbai (treasurer) answered : " If one hasn't money,

2 — 2

20 GHETTO COMEDIES

one sits at home." And my wife said to him, weeping :
fMy tears be on your head,' and went home, and
remained home the whole day weeping. With a
woman Yom Kippur is a wonder-working day. She
thought that her prayers might be heard, that God
would consider her plight if she wept out her heart to
Him in the Shool. But she was frustrated, and this
was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. Moreover,
she was oppressed by her own brethren, and this was
indeed bitter. If it had been the Gentile, she would
have consoled herself with the thought, ' We are in
exile.' When the fast was over, we had nothing but a
little bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for
the next day's fast. Nevertheless we sorrowfully slept.
But the wretched day came again, and the elder chil-
dren went out into the street to seek Parnosoh (employ-
ment), and found scrubbing, that brought in nine-
pence. We bought bread, and continued to live
further. Likewise we obtained three shillngs' worth
of washing to do, and were as rich as Rothschild.
When Succoth (Tabernacles) came, again no money, no
bread, and I went about the streets the whole day to
seek for work. When I was asked what handicrafts-
man I was, of course I had to say I had no trade, for,
foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of Russia
a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to
hold one up to scorn, they say to him : ' Anybody can
see you are a descendant of a handicraftsman.'

I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn,
but what availed these accomplishments ? As I found
I could obtain no work, I went into the Shool of the
' Sons of the Soul.' I seated myself next a man, and
we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he ;

THE MODEL'S STORY 21

' I will give you advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is a
very fine man.'

I did so. As I entered, he sat in company with
another man, holding his Lulov and Esrog (palm and
citron). ' What do you want ?' I couldn't answer
him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my
tears gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand.
I felt assured of sympathy, if of nothing else. I told
him we were perishing for want of bread, and asked him
to give me advice. He answered nothing. He turned
to the man, and spoke concerning the Tabernacle and
the Citron. He took no further notice of me, but left
me standing.

So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia.
And this is a Rabbi ! As I saw I might as well have
talked to the wall, I left the room without a word from
him. As the moujik would say : ' Sad and bitter is
the poor man's lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb
and not to see the sunlit world than to be a poor man
and be compelled to beg for money.'

I came home, where my family was waiting patiently
for my return with bread. I said : ' Good Yomtov?
weeping, for they looked scarcely alive, having been
without a morsel of food that day.

So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit
it, but demanded his due. ' Hunger, you old fool, why
don't you let us sleep ?' But he refused to be talked
over. So we passed the night. When day came the
. little children began to cry : ' Father, let us go. We
will beg bread in the streets. We die of hunger.
Don't hold us back.'

When the mother heard them speak of begging in the
streets, she swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour

22 GHETTO COMEDIES

among the children. When at length we brought her
to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her to life.
* I would rather have died than hear you speak of
begging in the streets — rather see my children die of
hunger before my eyes.' This speech of the mother
caused them to forget their hunger, and they sat and
wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man from
next door, Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was
the matter. He looked around, and his heart went out
to us. So he went away, and returned speedily with
bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away
again, returning with five shillings. He said : * This I
lend you.' Later he came back with a man, Nathan
Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away the
three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when
I called to see them in his house in St. George's Road,
they hid themselves from me, being afraid I should
want them to return to endure again the pangs of
hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should
have the care of my children, and that they should shun
me as one shuns a forest-robber.

After Yomtov I went to Grunbach, the shipping
agent, to see whether my luggage had arrived, as I had
understood from Kazelia that it would get here in a
month's time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired
concerning it. Said he : ' Your luggage won't come
to London, only to Rotterdam. If you like, I will
write a letter to inquire if it is at Rotterdam, and how
much money is due to redeem it.' I told him I had
borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he
calculated that it would cost me £4 6s., including freight
to redeem it. But I told him to write and ask. Some
days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating the cost

THE MODEL'S STORY 23

at eighty-three roubles (£8 133.), irrespective of freight
dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I
immediately wrote to Kazelia : ' Why do you behave
like a forest-robber, giving me only twenty-five roubles
where you got eighty-three ?' Answered he : ' Shame
on you to write such a letter ! Haven't you been in
my house, and seen what an honourable Jew I am ?
Shame on you ! To such men as you one can't do a
favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in
the world ? You are all thick-headed. You can't
read a letter. I only took fifty-four roubles on the
luggage ; I had to recoup myself because I lost money
through sending you to London. I calculated my loss,
and only took what was due to me.' I showed the
letter to Grunbach, and he wrote again to Rotterdam,
and they answered that they knew nothing of a Kazelia.
I must pay the £8 133. if I wanted my bundle. Well,
what was to be done ? The weather grew colder.
Hunger we had become inured to. But how could we
pass the winter nights on the bare boards ? I wrote
again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever.
Day and night I went about asking advice concerning
the luggage. Nobody could help me.

And as I stood thus in the middle of the sea, word
came to me of a Landsmann (countryman) I had once
helped to escape from the Russian army, in the days
when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he
had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad
in front of the sea in a great town called Brighton.
So I started off at once to talk to him — two days'
journey, they said — for I knew he would help ; and if
not he, who ? I would come to him as his Sabbath
guest ; he would surely fall upon my neck. The first

24 GHETTO COMEDIES

night I slept in a barn with another tramp, who pointed
me the way ; but because I stopped to earn sixpence by
chopping wood, lo ! when Sabbath came I was still
twelve miles away, and durst not profane the Sabbath
by walking. So I lingered that Friday night in a
village, thanking God I had at least the money for a
bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money.
And all next day, I know not why, the street-boys
called me a Goy (heathen) and a fox — ' Goy-Fox, Goy-
Fox !' — and they let off fireworks in my face. So
I had to wander in the woods around, keeping within
the Sabbath radius, and when the three stars appeared
in the sky I started for Brighton. But so footsore was
I, I came there only at midnight, and could not search.
And I sat down on a bench ; it was very cold, but I was
so tired. But the policeman came and drove me away
—he was God's messenger, for I should perchance have
died — and a drunken female with a painted face told
him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. How could
I refuse ? I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday
morning I started out, and walked all down in front of
the sea ; but my heart grew sick, for I saw the shops
were shut. At last I saw a jewellery shop and my
Landsmann's name over it. It sparkled with gold and
diamonds, and little bills were spread over it — * Great
sale ! Great sale !' Then I went joyfully to the door,
but lo ! it was bolted. So I knocked and knocked,
and at last a woman came from above, and told me
he lived in that road in Hove, where I found indeed
my redeemer, but not my Landsmann. It was a great
house, with steps up and steps down. I went down
to a great door, and there came out a beautiful
heathen^ female with' a shining white cap on her

THE PICTURE EVOLVES 25

head and a shining white apron, and she drove me
away.

' Goy-Fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath
and slammed the door on my heart ; and I sat down
on the pavement without, and I became a pillar of
salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw
the Angel of the Lord.

CHAPTER III

THE PICTURE EVOLVES

SUCH was my model's simple narrative, the homely
realism of which appealed to me on my most imagina-
tive side, for through all its sordid details stood revealed
to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it
Heine or another who said ' The people of Christ is
the Christ of peoples ' ? At any rate, such was the
idea that began to take possession of me as I painted
away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried
model — to paint, not the Christ that I had started
out to paint, but the Christ incarnated in a race,
suffering — and who knew that He did not suffer over
again ? — in its Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could still
be my model, but after another conception altogether.
It was an idea that called for no change in what I
had already done. For I had worked mainly upon the
head, and now that I purposed to clothe the figure in
its native gaberdine, there would be little to re-draw.
And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling
even safer now that I was painting and interpreting

26 GHETTO COMEDIES

a real thing than when I was trying to reconstruct
retrospectively the sacred figure that had walked in
Galilee.

And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new con-
ception than I found everywhere how old it was. It
appeared even to have Scriptural warrant, for from a
brief report of a historical - theological lecture by a
Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of
the passages in the Prophets which had been interpreted
as pointing to a coming Messiah, really applied to
Israel, the people. Israel it was whom Isaiah, in that
famous fifty-third chapter, had described as ' despised
and rejected of men : a man of sorrows.' Israel it was
who bore the sins of the world. ' He was oppressed
and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth ;
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Yes, Israel
was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German
Professor, I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic
opinion. My model proved a mine of lore upon this
as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish
expectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he
said — that the Messhiach would come riding upon a
white ass. Israel would be redeemed by itself, though
his neighbours would have called the sentiment ' epi-
curean.'

1 Whoever saves me is my Messhiach? he declared
suddenly, and plucked at my hand to kiss it.

' Now, you shock me? I said, pushing him away.

' No, no,' he said ; ' I agree with the word of the
moujik : " the good people are God." '

' Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,'
I said.

' Yes,' he replied ; c now that you have saved me, I

THE PICTURE EVOLVES 27

see that God works only through men. As for the
Messhiach on the white ass, they do not really believe
it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. For
my own part, when I say the prayer, " Blessed be Thou
who restorest the dead to life," I always mean it of
you.9

Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satis-
fied the greediest benefactor, and was infinitely in
excess of what he owed me. He seemed unconscious
that he was doing work, journeying punctually long
miles to my studio in any and every weather. It is
true that I early helped him to redeem his household
gods, but could I do less for a man who had still no
bed to sleep in ?

My recovery of the Rotterdam bundle served to unveil
further complications. The agents at the East End
charged him three shillings and sixpence per letter,
and conducted the business with a fine legal delay.
But it was not till Kazelia was eulogized by one of these
gentry as a very fine man that both the model and I
grew suspicious that the long chain of roguery reached
even unto London, and that the confederates on this
side were playing for time, so that the option should
expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage,
which they would doubtless buy in cheap, making
another profit.

Ultimately Quarriar told me his second daughter —
for the eldest was blind of one eye — was prepared to
journey alone to Rotterdam, as the safest way of re-
deeming the goods. Admiring her pluck, I added her
fare to the expenses.

One fine morning Israel appeared, transfigured with
happiness.

28 GHETTO COMEDIES

' When does man rejoice most ?' he cried. * When
he loses and finds again.'

' Ah, then you have got your bedding at last,' I
cried, now accustomed to his methods of expression.
{ I hope you slept well.'

' We could not sleep for blessing you,' he replied
unexpectedly. ' As the Psalmist says, " All my bones
praise the Lord !"

Not that the matter had gone smoothly even now.
The Kazelia gang at Rotterdam denied all knowledge
of the luggage, sent the girl to the railway, where the
dues had now mounted to £10 6s. Again the cup was
dashed from her lips, for I had only given her £g. But
she went to the Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the
balance to repledge the Sabbath silver candlesticks
that were the one family heirloom in the bundle, and
therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading
with him, in came a noble Jew, paid the balance,
lodged her and fed her, and saw her safely on board
with the long-lost treasures.

CHAPTER IV

I BECOME A SORTER

As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress
I was making was largely tempered by the knowledge
that after the completion of my picture my model
would be thrown again on the pavement, and several
times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if
watching its advancing stages with a sort of hopeless

/ BECOME A SORTER 29

fear. My anxiety about him and his family grew from
day to day, but I could not see any possible way of
helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to
please, and uncomplaining either of cold or hunger.
Once I gave him a few shillings to purchase a second-
hand pair of top-boots, which were necessary for the
picture, and these he was able to procure in the Ghetto
Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscien-
tiously returned me the balance — about two-thirds.

I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir
Asher Aaronsberg, the famous philanthropist and
picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in town in connec-
tion with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how
indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish
charities, I inquired whether some committee could not
do anything to assist Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very
encouraging. The man knew no trade. However, if
he would make application on the form enclosed and
answer the questions, he would see what could be done.
I saw that the details were duly filled in — the ages and
sex of his five children, etc.

But the committee came to the conclusion that the
only thing they could do was to repatriate the man.
' Return to Russia !' cried Israel in horror.

Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future
had occurred to him. But he never raised the subject
of his difficulties of his own accord, and his very silence,
born, as it seemed to me, of the maj estic dignity of the
man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again came a
fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be
given a week's work for a few shillings by his landlord,
a working master-tailor in a small way, from whom he
now rented two tiny rooms on the top floor. But that

30 GHETTO COMEDIES

was only when there was an extra spasm of activity.
His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and
the landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.

At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea,
moreover, that was carefully worked out in all its
details. The scheme was certainly a novel and sur-
prising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing
a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been
cultivated among these people, forced for centuries to
exist under impossible conditions.

Briefly his scheme was this. In the innumerable
tailors' workshops of his district great piles of cuttings
of every kind and quality of cloth accumulated, and
for the purchase of these cuttings a certain competition
existed among a class of people, known as piece-
sorters. The sale of these cuttings by weight and for
cash brought the master-tailors a pleasant little
revenue, which was the more prized as it was a sort of
perquisite. The masters were able to command pay-
ment for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would
call to collect them week by week as they accumulated,
till the amount he had advanced was exhausted.
Quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be
able to employ his daughters too. The whole family
would find occupation in sorting out their purchases,
and each quality and size would be readily saleable
as raw material, to be woven again into the cheaper
woollen materials. Through the recommendation of
his countrymen, there were several tailors who had
readily agreed to give him the preference. His own
landlord in particular had promised to befriend him,
and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate
at some inconvenience, since he might have had ready

/ BECOME A SORTER 31

money for them. Moreover, his friends had introduced
him to a very respectable and honest sorter, who
would take him into partnership, teach him, and allow
his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put
down twenty pounds ! His friends would jointly
advance him eight on the security of his silver candle-
sticks, if only he could raise the other twelve.

This promising scheme took an incubus off my mind,
and I hastened, somewhat revengefully, to acquaint
the professional philanthropist, who had been so
barren of ideas, with my intention to set up Quarriar
as a piece-sorter.

4 Ah,' Sir Asher replied, unmoved. ' Then you had
better employ my man Conn ; he does a good deal of
this sort of work for me. He will find Quarriar a
partner and professor.'

' But Quarriar has already found a partner.' I
explained the scheme.

' The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is
ridiculous. Five pounds is quite enough. Take my
advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I wanted my
portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to
an amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds,
but please don't tell Conn I gave them. I don't believe
the money '11 do any good, and Conn will lose his
respect for me.'

My interest in piece-sorting — an occupation I had
never even heard of before — had grown abnormally, and
I had gone into the figures and quantities — so many
hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings, sorted
into lots, and sold at various prices — with as thorough-
going an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to
depend upon it.

32 . GHETTO COMEDIES

I confess I was now rather bewildered by so serious a
difference of estimate as to the cost of a partnership,
but I was inclined to set down Sir Asher's scepticism
to that pessimism which is the penalty of professional
philanthropy.

On the other hand, I felt that whether the partnership
was to cost five pounds or twenty, Quarriar's future
would be safer from Kazelias under the auspices of Sir
Asher and his Conn. So I handed the latter the five
pounds, and bade him find Quarriar a guide, philosopher,
and partner.

With the advent of Conn, all my troubles began,
and the picture passed into its third and last stage.

I soon elicited that Quarriar and his friends were
rather sorry Conn had been introduced into the matter.
He was alleged to favour some people at the expense of
others, and to be not at all popular among the people
amid whom he worked. And altogether it was abun-
dantly clear that Quarriar would rather have gone on
with the scheme in his own way without official inter-
ference.

Later, Sir Asher wrote to me direct that the partner
put forward by the Quarriar faction was a shady cus-
tomer ; Conn had selected his own man, but even so
there was little hope Quarriar's future would be thus
provided for.

There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of
Quarriar sounding underneath, but I found comfort in
the reflection that to Sir Asher my model was nothing
more than the usual applicant for assistance, whereas
to me who had lived for months in daily contact with
him he was something infinitely more human.

Spring was now nearing ; I finished my picture early

I BECOME A SORTER 33

in March — after four months' strenuous labour —
shook hands with my model, and received his blessing.
I was somewhat put out at learning that Conn had not
yet given him the five pounds necessary to start him,
as I had been hoping he might begin his new calling
immediately the sittings ended. I gave him a small
present to help tide over the time of waiting.

But that tragic face on my own canvas remained to
haunt me, to ask the question of his future, and few
days elapsed ere I found myself starting out to visit
him at his home. He lived near Ratcliffe Highway, a
district which I found had none of that boisterous
marine romance with which I had associated it.

The house was a narrow building of at least the six-
teenth century, with the number marked up in chalk
on the rusty little door. I happened to have stumbled
on the Jewish Passover. Quarriar was called down,
evidently astonished and unprepared for my appear-
ance at his humble abode, but he expressed pleasure,
and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling
almost touched my head as I climbed up after him.
On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, inter-
cepted us, introduced himself in English (which he
spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my
further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way
to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming
for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his attic.

He was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness
and vigour — a marked contrast to Quarriar's droop-
ing, dignified figure standing silently near by, and
radiating poverty and suffering all the more in the
little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved
walnut cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed

3

34 GHETTO COMEDIES

birds. Effusively the master-tailor painted himself
as the champion of the poor fellow, and protested
against this outside partnership that was being imposed
on him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though
he could scarcely afford it, was keeping his cuttings for
him, in spite of tempting offers from other quarters,
even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn't see
why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic
factotum should benefit by this goodness of his. He
discoursed to me in moved terms of the sorrows and
privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms up-
stairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his atti-
tude of drooping dignity, saying no syllable except
under special appeal.

The landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub
for the benefit of the high-born visitor, and we all
clinked glasses, the young master-tailor beaming at me
unctuously as he set down his glass.

4 1 love company,' he cried, with no apparent con-
sciousness of impudent familiarity.

I returned, however, to my central interest in life —
the piece-sorting. It occurred to me afterwards that
possibly I ought not to have insisted on such a secular
subject on a Jewish holiday, but, after all, the landlord
had broached it, and both men now entered most
cordially into the discussion. The landlord started re-
peating his lament — what a pity it would be if Quarriar
were really forced to accept Conn's partner — when
Quarriar timidly blurted out that he had already signed
the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received
the promised capital from Conn, nor spoken over matters
with the partner provided. The landlord seemed
astonished and angry at learning this, pricking up his

I BECOME A SORTER 35

ears curiously at the word ' signed,' and giving Quarriar
a look of horror.

' Signed !' he cried in Yiddish. ' What hast thou
signed ?'

At this point the landlord's wife joined us in the
parlour, with a pretty child in her arms and another
shy one clinging to her skirts, completing the picture
of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into greater
shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed
my way up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly
prepared for the depressing spectacle that awaited me
at their summit. It was not so much the shabby,
fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of
mattresses, a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and
a heap of Passover cakes, as the unloveliness of the
three women who stood there, awkward and flushing
before their important visitor. The wife-and-mother
was dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were
squat, with tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely
suggestive of Caucasian peasants, while the sightless
eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness.

How little my academic friends know me who
imagine I am allured by the ugly ! It is only that
sometimes I see through it a beauty that they are
blind to. But here I confess I saw nothing but the
ghastly misery and squalor, and I was oppressed
almost to sickness as much by the scene as by the
atmosphere.

4 May I open a window ?' I could not help inquiring.

The genial landlord, who had followed in my foot-
steps, rushed to anticipate me, and when I could
breathe more freely, I found something of the tragedy
that had been swallowed in the sordidness. My eye

3—2

36 GHETTO COMEDIES

fell again on the figure of my host standing in his
drooping majesty, the droop being now necessary to
avoid striking the ceiling with his kingly head.

Surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would
have detracted from the splendour of the tragedy.
Israel stood there, surrounded by all that was mean,
yet losing nothing of his regal dignity — indeed the
Man of Sorrows.

Ere I left I suddenly remembered to ask after the
three younger children. They were still with their
kind benefactor, the father told me.

' I suppose you will resume possession of them when
you make your fortune by the piece-sorting ?' I said.

' God grant it,' he replied. * My bowels yearn for
that day.'

Against my intention I slipped into his hand the
final seven pounds I was prepared to pay. ' If your
partnership scheme fails, try again alone,' I said.

His blessings pursued me down the steep staircase.
His womankind remained shy and dumb.

When I got home I found a telegram from the
Parsonage. My father was dangerously ill. I left
everything and hastened to help nurse him. My
picture was not sent in to any Exhibition — I could not
let it go without seeing it again, without a last touch
or two. When, some months later, I returned to
town, my first thought — inspired by the sight of my
picture — was how Quarriar was faring. I left the
studio and telephoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at
the London office of his great Middle ton business.

' That !' His contempt penetrated even through the
wires. c Smashed up long ago. Just as I expected.'

/ BECOME A SORTER 37

And the sneer of the professional philanthropist
vibrated triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I
could recover my composure Sir Asher was cut off.
In the evening I received a note saying Quarriar was
a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of
spirits. He had only two, at most three, elderly
daughters ; the three younger girls were a myth. For
a moment I was staggered ; then all my faith in Israel
returned. Those three children a figment of the
imagination ! Impossible ! Why, I remembered
countless little anecdotes about these very children,
told me with the most evident fatherly pride. He
had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest
had made on her return home from her first morning
at the English school. Impossible that these things
could have been invented on the spur of the moment.
No ; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of
my model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those
days he had had no reason for expecting anything
from me, and he had most certainly not demanded
anything. And then I remembered that tragic passage
describing how these three little ones, sheltered and
fed by a kindly soul, hid themselves when their father
came to see them, fearing to be reclaimed by him to
hunger and cold. If Quarriar could invent such things,
he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of
starvation I could recall no better touch.

I went to Sir Asher. He said that Quarriar, chal-
lenged by Conn to produce these children, had refused
to do so, or to answer any further questions. I found
myself approving of his conduct. ' A man ought not
to be insulted by such absurd charges,' I said. Sir
Asher merely smiled and took up his usual unshak-

38 GHETTO COMEDIES

able position behind his impregnable wall of official
distrust and pessimism.

I wrote to Quarriar to call on me without delay. He
came immediately, his head bowed, his features care-
worn and full of infinite suffering. Yes, it was true ;
the piece-sorting had failed. For a few weeks all had
gone well. He had bought cuttings himself, had given
the partner thrust upon him by Conn various sums for
the same purpose. They had worked together, sorting
in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which his partner
kept the key. So smoothly had things gone that he
had felt encouraged to invest even the reserve seven
pounds I had given him, but when the cellar was full
of their common stock, and his own suspicions had
been lulled by the regular division of the profits —
seventeen shillings per week for each — one morning,
on arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he
found the place locked, and when he called at the
partner's house for an explanation, the man laughed
in his face. Everything in the cellar now belonged to
him, he claimed, insisting that Quarriar had eaten up
the original capital and his share of the profits besides.

' Besides, it never was your money,' was the rogue's
ultimate argument. ' Why shouldn't / profit, too, by
the Christian's simplicity ?'

Conn blindly believed his own man, for the trans-
actions had not been recorded in writing, and it was
only a case of Quarriar 's word against the partner's. It
was the latter who in his venomous craft had told
Conn the younger children did not exist. But, thank
Heaven ! his quiver was not empty of them. He had
blissfully taken them home when prosperity began,
but now that he was again face to face with starvation,

I BECOME A SORTER 39

they had returned to his hospitable countryman,
Nathan Beck.

' You are sure you could absolutely produce the
little ones ?'

He looked grieved at my distrusting him. My faith
in his probity was, he said with dignity, the one thing
he valued in this world. I dismissed him with a little
to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined
that the man's good name should be cleared. The
crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my
benevolent friend and of Conn must be finally opened
to the injustice they had unwittingly sanctioned.
Again I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher
replied kindly and without a trace of impatience.
Would I get some intelligible written statement from
Quarriar as to what had taken place ?

So, at my request, Quarriar sent me a statement in
quaint English — probably the landlord's — alleging
specifically that the partner had detained goods and
money belonging to Quarriar to the amount of
£7 93. 5d., and had assaulted him into the bargain.
When the partner was threatened with police-court
proceedings, he had defied Quarriar with the remark
that Mr. Conn would bear out his honesty. Quarriar
could give as references, to show that he was an honest
man and had made a true statement as to the number
of his children, seven Russians (named) who would
attest that the partner provided by Conn was well
known as a swindler. Though he was starving,
Quarriar refused to have anything further to say to
Conn. Quarriar further referred to his landlord,
who would willingly testify to his honesty. But
being afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit

40 GHETTO COMEDIES

himself in writing, the landlord would give his version
verbally.

Against this statement my philanthropic friend had
to set another as made by the partner. Quarriar,
according to this, had received the five pounds direct
from Conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to
the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two
separate sums of one pound each (of which he re-
turned to Quarriar thirty-three shillings from sales),
while Quarriar only gave him as his share of the
profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of
seventeen shillings, instead of the minimum of ten
shillings each week that had been arranged.

The partner insisted further that he had never handled
any money (of which Quarriar had always retained full
control), and that all the goods in the cellar at the
time of the quarrel were only of the value of ten
shillings, to which he was entitled, as Quarriar still
owed him thirty-three shillings. Moreover, he was
willing to repeat in Quarriar's presence the lies
the latter had tried to persuade him to tell. As
to the children, he challenged Quarriar to produce
them.

In vain I attempted to grapple with these conflicting
documents. My head was in a whirl. It seemed to
me that no judicial bench, however eminent, could,
from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom
of this matter. The arithmetic of both parties was
hopelessly beyond me. The names of the witnesses
introduced showed that there must be two camps,
and that certainly Quarriar was solidly encamped amid
his advisers.

The whole business was taking on a most painful

/ BECOME A SORTER 41

complexion, and I was torn by conflicting emotions
and swayed alternately by suspicion and confidence.

How sift the false from the true amid all this tangled
mass ? And yet mere curiosity would not leave me
content to go to my grave not knowing whether my
model was apostle or Ananias. I, too, must then
become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments.
Was there a black rag, and was there a white, or were
both rags parti-coloured ? To take only the one point
of the children, it would seem a very simple matter to
determine whether a man has five daughters or two ;
and yet the more I looked into it, the more I saw the
complexity. Even if three little girls were produced
for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for me to
tell whether they really were the model's . Nor was
it open to me to repeat the device of Solomon and have
them hacked in two to see whose heart would be
moved.

And then, if Israel's story was false here, what of
the rest ? Was Kazelia also a myth ? Did the
second daughter ever go to Hamburg ? Was the
landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain
time for the attics to be emptied of any comforts ?
Where were the silver candlesticks ? These and other
questions surged up torturingly. But I remembered
the footsore figure on the Brighton pavement ; I
remembered the months he had practically lived with
me, the countless conversations, and as the Man of
Sorrows rose reproachful before me from my own
canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his
dignity and probity returned unbroken.

I called on Sir Asher — I had to go to the House of
Commons to find him— and his practical mind quickly

42 GHETTO COMEDIES

suggested the best course in the circumstances. He
appointed a date for all parties — himself, myself,
Conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might
care to bring — to appear at his office. But, above all,
Quarriar must bring the three children with him.

On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar
waiting for me. He was come to pour out his heart to
me, and to complain that all sorts of underhand in-
quiries were being directed against him, so that he
scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air
with treachery. He was afraid that his very friends,
who were anxious not to offend Conn and Sir Asher,
might turn against him. Even his landlord had
threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to
pay his rent the last week or two.

I told him he might expect a letter asking him to
attend at Sir Asher's office, that I should be there, and
he should have an opportunity of facing his swindling
partner. He welcomed it joyfully, and enthusiastically
promised to obey the call and bring the children. I
emptied my purse into his hand — there were three or
four pounds — and he promised me that quite apart
from the old tangle, he could now as an expert set up
as a piece-sorter himself. And so his kingly figure
passed out of my sight.

The next document sent me in this cause celebre was
a letter from Conn to announce that he had made all
arrangements for the great meeting.

' Sir Asher's private room in his office will be
placed at the disposal of the inquiry. The original
application form filled up by Quarriar clearly con-
demns him. The partner will be there, and I have
arranged for Quarriar's landlord to appear if you

/ BECOME A SORTER 43

think it necessary. I may add that I have very good
reason to believe that Quarriar does not mean to
appear. I fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the
appointment.'

I at once wrote a short note to Quarriar reminding
him of the absolute necessity of appearing with the
children, who should be even kept away from school.

I reproduce the exact reply :

1 DEAR SIR,

' Referring to your welcome letter, I gratify
you very much for the trouble you have taken for me.
But I'm sorry to tell you that I refuse to go before the
committee according you arranged to, as I received
a letter without any name threatening me that I
should not dare to call for the committee to tell the
truth for I will be put into mischief and trouble.
It is stated also that the same gentleman does not
require the truth. He helps only those he likes to.
So I will not call and wish you my dear gentleman
not to trouble to come. Therefore if you wish to
assist me in somehow is very good and I will certainly
gratify you and if not I will have to do without it,
and will have to trust the Almighty. So kindly do
not trouble about it as I do not wish to enter a risk,
I remain your humble and grateful servant,

* ISRAEL QUARRIAR.

* P.S. — Last Wednesday a man called on my land-
lord and asked him some secrets about me, and told
him at last that I shall have to state according I will
be commanded to and not as I wish. I enclose you
herewith the same letter I received, it is written in

44 GHETTO COMEDIES

Jewish. Please not to show it to anyone but to tear
it at once as I would not trust it to any other one. I
would certainly call at the office and follow your
advice. But my life is dearer. So you should not
trouble to come. I fear already I gratify you for
kind help till now, in the future you may do as you
wish.'

CHAPTER V

LAST STAGE OF ALL

THIS letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. Conn
to English the Yiddish epistle. My imagination saw too
clearly Quarriar himself dictating its luridly romantic
phraseology. Such counter-plots, coils, treasons, and
stratagems in so simple a matter ! How Quarriar
could even think them plausible I could not at first
imagine ; and with my anger was mingled a flush of
resentment at his low estimate of my intellect.

After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a
Russian to whom apparently nothing mediaeval was
strange. But at the moment I had only the sense of
outrage and trickery. All these months I had been
fed upon lies. Day after day I had been swathed with
them as with feathers. I had so pledged my reputa-
tion as a reader of character that he would appear
with his three younger children, bear every test, and
be triumphantly vindicated. And in that moment of
hot anger and wounded pride I had almost slashed
through my canvas and mutilated beyond redemption
that kingly head. But it looked at me sadly with

LAST STAGE OF ALL 45

its sweet majesty, and I stayed my hand, almost
persuaded to have faith in it still. I began multiply-
ing excuses for Quarriar, figuring him as misled by
his neighbours, more skilled than he in playing upon
philanthropic heart-strings ; he had been told, doubt-
less, that two daughters made no impression upon
the flinty heart of bureaucratic charity, that in order to
soften it one must ' increase and multiply.' He had
got himself into a network of falsehood from which,
though his better nature recoiled, he had been unable
to disentangle himself. But then I remembered how
even in Russia he had pursued an illegal calling, how
he had helped a friend to evade military service, and
again I took up my knife. But the face preserved its
reproachful dignity, seemed almost to turn the other
cheek. Illegal calling ! No ; it was the law that was
illegal — the cruel, impossible law, that in taking
away all means of livelihood had contorted the Jew's
conscience. It was the country that was illegal — -
the cruel country whose frontiers could only be crossed
by bribery and deceit — the country that had made
him cunning like all weak creatures in the struggle
for survival. And so, gradually softer thoughts came
to me, and less unmingled feelings. I could not doubt
the general accuracy of his melancholy wanderings
between Russia and Rotterdam, between London and
Brighton. And were he spotless as the dove, that
only made surer the blackness of Kazelia and the
partner — his brethren in Israel and in the Exile.

And so the new Man of Sorrows shaped himself to
my vision. And, taking my brush, I added a touch
here and a touch there till there came into that face of

46 GHETTO COMEDIES

sorrows a look of craft and guile. And as I stood back
from my work, I was startled to see how nearly I had
come to a photographic representation of my model ;
for those lines of guile had indeed been there, though
I had eliminated them in my confident misrepresenta-
tion. Now that I had exaggerated them, I had
idealized, so to speak, in the reverse direction. And
the more I pondered upon this new face, the more I
saw that this return to a truer homeliness and a more
real realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler
beauty. For surely here at last was the true tragedy
of the people of Christ — to have persisted sublimely,
and to be as sordidly perverted ; to be king and knave
in one ; to survive for two thousand years the loss of
a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to
wear on its soul the yellow badge which had defaced
its garments.

For to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a
privilege that has been accorded only to Israel — ' the
soldier of God.' That were no tragedy, but an heroic
epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had prefigured. The
true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom
of an Israel unworthy of his sufferings. And this was
the Israel — the high tragedian in the comedy sock —
that I tried humbly to typify in my Man of Sorrows.

ANGLICIZATION

ANGLICIZATION

' English, all English, that's my dream.'

CECIL RHODES.

EVEN in his provincial days at Sudminster Solomon
Cohen had distinguished himself by his Anglican mis-
pronunciation of Hebrew and his insistence on a
minister who spoke English and looked like a Christian
clergyman ; and he had set a precedent in the con-
gregation by docking the ' e ' of his patronymic.
There are many ways of concealing from the Briton
your shame in being related through a pedigree of
three thousand years to Aaron, the High Priest of
Israel, and Cohn is one of the simplest and most
effective. Once, taken to task by a pietist, Solomon
defended himself by the quibble that Hebrew has no
vowels. But even this would not account for the
whittling away of his ' Solomon.' 4 S. Cohn ' was the
insignium over his clothing establishment. Not that
he was anxious to deny his Jewishness — was not the
shop closed on Saturdays ? — he was merely anxious
not to obtrude it. ' When we are in England, we are
in England,' he would say, with his Talmudic sing-
song.

49 4

50 GHETTO COMEDIES

S. Cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of
Sudminster, and his name had been printed on voting
papers, and, what is more, he had at last become a
Town Councillor. Really the citizens liked his stanch
adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly
by his Sabbath shutters : even the Christian clothiers
bore him goodwill, not suspecting that S. Cohn's
Saturday losses were more than counterbalanced by
the general impression that a man who sacrificed
business to religion would deal more fairly by you
than his fellows. And his person, too, had the rotun-
dity which the ratepayer demands.

But twin with his Town Councillor's pride was his
pride in being Gabbai (treasurer) of the little syna-
gogue tucked away in a back street : in which for four
generations prayer had ebbed and flowed as regularly
as the tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the
worshippers did such lucrative business. The syna-
gogue, not the sea, was the poetry of these eager
traffickers : here they wore phylacteries and waved
palm-branches and did other picturesque things,
which in their utter ignorance of Catholic or other
ritual they deemed unintelligible to the heathen and
a barrier from mankind. Very imposing was Solomon
Cohn in his official pew under the reading platform,
for there is nothing which so enhances a man's dignity
in the synagogue as the consideration of his Christian
townsmen. That is one of the earliest stages of
Anglicization.

ANGLICIZATION

II

Mrs. Cohn was a pale image of Mr. Cohn, seeing
things through his gold spectacles, and walking humbly
in the shadow of his greatness. She had dutifully
borne him many children, and sat on the ground for
such as died. Her figure refused the Jewess's tradi-
tion of opulency, and remained slender as though
repressed. Her work was manifold and unceasing,
for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties
she was necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with
Jewish charities as the Gabbai's wife, tangled with
Christian charities as the consort of the Town Coun-
cillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching
up his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her
slips in speaking the Councillor's English. He had
had the start of her by five years, for she had been
brought from Poland to marry him, through the good
offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little dowry
the nucleus of a thriving shop in a thriving port.

And from this initial inferiority she never recovered
— five milestones behind on the road of Anglicization !
It was enough to keep down a more assertive per-
sonality than poor Hannah's. The mere danger of
slipping back unconsciously to the banned Yiddish
put a curb upon her tongue. Her large, dark eyes
had a dog-like look, and they were set pathetically in
a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense
staying power.

That S. Cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be
denied. It is difficult to combine the offices of Gabbai
and Town Councillor without a self-satisfaction that

4—2

52 GHETTO COMEDIES

may easily degenerate into dissatisfaction with others.
Least endurable was S. Cohn in his religious rigidity,
and he could never understand that pietistic exercises
in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce
ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was dis-
covered reading ' The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously
concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strap-
ping that made his mother wince. Simon's breakfast
lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers ; and,
having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum
of time his father would accept for the gabbling of
these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen back on
penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes.
The quartering and burning of these tales in an aveng-
ing fireplace was not the least of the reasons why the
whipped youth wept, and it needed several pieces of
cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the
father's back was turned, to choke his sobs.

in

.

With the daughters — and there were three before
the son and heir — there was less of religious friction,
since women have not the pious privileges and burdens
of the sterner sex. When the eldest, Deborah, was
married, her husband received, by way of compensa-
tion, the goodwill of the Sudminster business, while
S. Cohn migrated to the metropolis, in the ambition
of making ' S. Cohn's trouserings ' a household word.
He did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the
Holloway Road.

ANGLICIZAflON 53

Gradually he came to live away from his business,
and in the most fashionable street of Highbury. But
he was never to recover his exalted posts. The London
parish had older inhabitants, the local synagogue richer
members. The cry for Anglicization was common pro-
perty. From pioneer, S. Cohn found himself out-
moded. The minister, indeed, was only too English
— and especially his wife. One would almost have
thought from their deportment that they considered
themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the
congregation. S. Cohn had been accustomed to a
series of clergymen, who must needs be taught pain-
fully to parrot ' Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, the
Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the
Royal Family ' — the indispensable atom of English
in the service — so that he, the expert, had held his
breath while they groped and stumbled along the
precipitous pass. Now the whilom Gabbai and Town
Councillor found himself almost patronized — as a poor
provincial — by this mincing, genteel clerical couple.
He retorted by animadverting upon the preacher's
heterodoxy.

An urban unconcern met the profound views so
often impressed on Simon with a strap. ' We are not
in Poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging his
shoulders.

4 In Poland!' S. Cohn's blood boiled. To be
twitted with Poland, after decades of Anglicization !
He, who employed a host of Anglo-Saxon clerks,
counter-jumpers, and packers ! ' And where did
your father come from ?' he retorted hotly.

He had almost a mind to change his synagogue,
but there was no other within such easy walking

54 GHETTO COMEDIES

distance — an important Sabbatic consideration — and
besides, the others were reported to be even worse.
Dread rumours came of a younger generation that
craved almost openly for organs in the synagogue
and women's voices in the choir, nay, of even more
flagitious spirits — devotional dynamitards — whose
dream was a service all English, that could be under-
stood instead of chanted ! Dark mutterings against
the ancient Rabbis were in the very air of these
wealthier quarters of London.

* Oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' S. Cohn
was wont to complain, * that does not know the limits
of Anglicization !'

IV
i

That Simon should enter his father's business was
as inevitable as that the business should prosper in
spite of Simon.

His career had been settled ere his father became
aware that Highbury aspired even to law and medicine,
and the idea that Simon's education was finished was
not lightly to be dislodged. Simon's education con-
sisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools
for the sons of tradesmen, while a long course of penny
dreadfuls had given him a peculiar and extensive
acquaintance with the ways of the world. Carefully
curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his
elementary Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his
conception of the perfect Englishman. Ah, how he
rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so thickly
starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and re-

ANGLICIZATION 55

staurants ! * We are emancipated now,' was his cry :
' we have too much intellect to keep all those old laws ;'
and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a fine spiri-
tual glow, which somehow or other would not extend
to bacon. That stuck more in his throat, and so was
only taken in self-defence, to avoid the suspicions of
a convivial company.

As he sat at his father's side in the synagogue —
a demure son of the Covenant — this young Englishman
lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even as beneath
his prayer-book had lurked ' The Pirates of Pechili.'

In this hidden life Mrs. S. Cohn was not an aider or
abettor, except in so far as frequent gifts from her own
pocket-money might be considered the equivalent of
the surreptitious cake of childhood. She would have
shared in her husband's horror had she seen Simon
banqueting on unrighteousness, *and her apoplexy
would have been original, not derivative. For her,
indeed, London had proved narrowing rather than
widening. She became part of a parish instead of part
of a town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that ! The
vast background of London was practically a mirage —
the London suburb was farther from London than the
provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic
life tingle through her ; she sank entirely to family
affairs, excluded even from the ladies' committee.
Her lord's life, too, shrank, though his business ex-
tended— the which, uneasily suspected, did but in-
crease his irritability. He had now the pomp and
pose of his late offices minus any visible reason : a
Sir Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen without
authority.

Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to

56 GHETTO COMEDIES

clothe them had soon procured in London, listened
impatiently, once they had safely passed under the
Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their
own. Home and shop became his only realm, and
his autocratic tendencies grew the stronger by com-
pression. He read ' the largest circulation,' and his
wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions,
never nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-
signs when the Boer War began.

* The impertinent rascals !' cried S. Cohn furiously.
8 They have invaded our territory.'

* Is it possible ?' ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. ' This
comes of our kindness to them after Majuba !'

A darkness began to overhang the destinies of
Britain. Three defeats in one week !

' It is humiliating,' said S. Cohn, clenching his fist.

' It makes a miserable Christmas,' said Mrs. Cohn
gloomily. Although her spouse still set his face
against the Christmas pudding which had invaded so
many Anglo- Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-
window flamboyance, entered far more vividly into
his consciousness than the Jewish holidays, which pro-
duced no impression on the life of the streets.

The darkness grew denser. Young men began to
enlist for the front : the City formed a new regiment
of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his foreign
houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent
out several parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and

ANGLICIZATION 57

had the same duly recorded in his favourite Christian
newspaper, whence it was copied into his favourite
Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more
chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher
Aaronsberg, M.P. for Middleton, who was equipping a
local corps at his own expense. Gradually S. Cohn
became aware that the military fever of which he read
in both his organs was infecting his clothing em-
porium— that his own counter-jumpers were in heats
of adventurous resolve. The military microbes must
have lain thick in the khaki they handled. At any
rate, S. Cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of
the correct thing, announced that he would present a
bonus to all who went out to fight for their country,
and that he would keep their places open for their
return. The Saturday this patriotic offer was re-
corded in his newspaper — ' On inquiry at S. Cohn's,
the great clothing purveyor of the Holloway Road,
our representative was informed that no less than
five of the young men were taking advantage of
their employer's enthusiasm for England and the
Empire' — the already puffed-up Solomon had the
honour of being called to read in the Law, and first as
befitted the sons of Aaron. It was a man restored
almost to his provincial pride who recited the ancient
benediction : ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who
hast chosen us from among all peoples and given to us
His law.'

§But there was a drop of vinegar in the cup.
' And why wasn't Simon in synagogue ?' he inquired
of his wife, as she came down the gallery stairs to meet
her lord in the lobby, where the congregants loitered
to chat.

58 GHETTO COMEDIES

* Do I know ?' murmured Mrs. Cohn, flushing beneath
her veil.

' When I left the house he said he was coming on.'
4 He didn't know you were to be " called up." '
' It isn't that, Hannah,' he grumbled. ' Think of
the beautiful war-sermon he missed. In these dark
days we should be thinking of our country, not of our
pleasures.' And he drew her angrily without, where
the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchang-
ing eulogiums on the ' Rule Britannia ' sermon, made
an Oriental splotch of colour on the wintry pavement.

VI

At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast.

' Where have you been ?' thundered S. Cohn, who,
never growing older, imagined Simon likewise sta-
tionary.

' I went out for a walk — it was a fine morning.'

' And where did you go ?'

' Oh, don't bother !'

' But I shall bother. Where did you go ?'

He grew sullen. ' It doesn't matter — they won't
have me.'

c Who won't have you ?'

' The War Office.'

' Thank God !' broke from Mrs. Cohn.

* Eh ?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the
other.

1 It is nothing — he went to see the enlisting and all
that. Your soup is getting cold.'

ANGLICIZATION 59

But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and
was polishing them with his serviette — always a sign
of a stormy meal.

4 It seems to me something has been going on behind
my back,' he said, looking from mother to son.

4 Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's
madcap ideas,' Hannah murmured. * But it's all
over now, thank God !'

4 Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 4 especi-
ally as I am not going to be choked off. It's all stuff
what the doctor says. I'm as strong as a horse. And,
what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who can
ride one.'

4 Hannah, will you explain to me what this Me-
shuggas (madness) is ?' cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a
non- Anglicism.

* I've got to go to the front, just like other young
men !'

' What !' shrieked S. Cohn. ' Enlist ! You, that I
brought up as a gentleman !'

' It's gentlemen that's going — the City Imperial
Volunteers !'

4 The volunteers ! But that's my own clerks.'

4 No ; there are gentlemen among them. Read your
paper.'

4 But not rich Jews.'

4 Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.'

* We Jews of this favoured country,' put in Hannah
eagerly, c grateful to the noble people who have given
us every right, every liberty, must '

S. Cohn was taken aback by this half -unconscious
quotation from the war-sermon jDf the morning. 4 Yes,
we must subscribe and all that,' he interrupted.

60 GHETTO COMEDIES

* We must fight,' said Simon.

' You fight !' His father laughed half-hysterically.

* Why, you'd shoot yourself with your own gun !' He
had not been so upset since the day the minister had
disregarded his erudition.

' Oh, would I, though ?' And Simon pursed his
lips and nodded meaningly.

4 As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you'd
be stuck on your own bayonet, like an obstinate pig.'

Simon got up and left the table and the room.

Hannah kept back her tears before the servant.

* There !' she said. ' And now he's turned sulky and
won't eat.'

' Didn't I say an obstinate pig ? He's always been
like that from a baby. But his stomach always sur-
renders.' He resumed his meal with a wronged air,
keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent ner-
vous polishing.

Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented
himself — gun on shoulder. For a moment S. Cohn,
devoid of his glasses, stared without recognition. Wild
hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the
Russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare
sense of the Chappers, the Jewish man-gatherers who
collected the tribute of young Jews for the Little
Father. But as Simon began to loom through the red
fog, ' A gun on the Sabbath !' he cried. It was as if
the bullet had gone through all his conceptions of life
and of Simon.

Hannah snatched at the side-issue. ' I read in
Josephus — Simon's prize for Hebrew, you know
— that the Jews fought against the Romans on
Sabbath.'

ANGLICIZATION

61

pro

1

' Yes ; but they fought for themselves — for our Holy
Temple.'

' But it's for ourselves now,' said Simon. e Didn't
you always say we are English ?'

S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then
he discovered he had no retort, only anger. And this
made him angrier, and his mouth remained open, quite
terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn.

4 What is the use of arguing with him ?' she said
imploringly. ' The War Office has been sensible
enough to refuse him.'

' We shall see,' said Simon. ' I am going to peg
away at 'em again, and if I don't get into the
Mounted Infantry, I'm a Dutchman — and of the
Boer variety.'

He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled
father. ' Hannah, you must have known of this —
these clothes,' S. Cohn spluttered.

' They don't cost anything,' she murmured. * The
child amuses himself. He will never really be called
out.'

' If he is, I'll stop his supplies.'

* Oh,' said Simon airily, ' the Government will
attend to that.'

' Indeed !' And S. Cohn's face grew black. ' But
remember — you may go, but you shall never come
back.'

' Oh, Solomon ! How can you utter such an awful
omen ?'

Simon laughed. ' Don't bother, mother. He's
bound to take me back. Isn't it in the papers that he
promised ?'

S. Cohn went from black to green.

62 GHETTO COMEDIES

VII

Simon got his way. The authorities reconsidered
their decision. But the father would not reconsider
his. Ignorant of his boy's graceless existence, he
fumed at the first fine thing in the boy's life. Tis a
wise father that knows his own child.

Mere emulation of his Christian comrades, and the
fun of the thing, had long ago induced the lad to add
volunteering to his other dissipations. But, once in
it, the love of arms seized him, and when the call for
serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised
even himself leapt to his breast — the first call upon an
idealism, choked, rather than fed, by a misunderstood
Judaism. Anglicization had done its work ; from his
schooldays he had felt himself a descendant, not of
Judas Maccabaeus, but of Nelson and Wellington ; and
now that his brethren were being mowed down by a
kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul rose in venomous
sympathy. And, mixed with this genuine instinct of
devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings
of anticipated adventure, gorgeous visions of charges,
forlorn hopes, picked-up shells, redoubts stormed ;
heritages of ' The Pirates of Pechili,' and all the
military romances that his prayer-book had masked.

He looked every inch an Anglo-Saxon, in his khaki
uniform and his great slouch hat, with his bayonet and
his bandolier.

The night before he sailed for South Africa there
was a service in St. Paul's Cathedral, for which
each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent his to
his father. ' The Lord Mayor will attend in state.

ANGLICIZATION 63

I dare say you'll like to see the show,' he wrote
flippantly.

' He'll become a Christian next,' said S. Cohn,
tearing the cards in twain.

Later, Mrs. Cohn pieced them together. It was the
last chance of seeing her boy.

VIII

Unfortunately the Cathedral service fell on a Friday
night, when S. Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont
to absorb the Sabbath peace. He would sit, after high
tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime ingredient,
dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved
platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January
night, the Sabbath arriving early in the afternoon,
he was snoring before seven, and Mrs. Cohn slipped
out, risking his wrath. Her religion forced her to
make the long journey on foot ; but, hurrying, she
arrived at St. Paul's before the doors were opened.
And throughout the long walk was a morbid sense of
one wasted ticket. She almost stopped at a friend's
house to offer the exciting spectacle, but dread of a
religious rebuff carried her past. With Christians she
was not intimate enough to invite companionship.
Besides, would not everybody ask why she was going
without her husband ?

She inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket,
and soon found herself one of a crowd of parents on
the steps. A very genteel crowd, she noted with
pleasure. Her boy would be in good company. The

64 GHETTO COMEDIES

scraps of conversation she caught dealt with a world
of alien things — how little she was Anglicized, she
thought, after all those years ! And when she was
borne forward into the Cathedral, her heart beat with
a sense of dim, remote glories. To have lived so long
in London and never to have entered here ! She was
awed and soothed by the solemn vistas, the per-
spectives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the
white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of
angels, the overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim,
but otherwise suggesting dim, skyey space.

Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the
men. But it did not seem to matter. The building
kept one's thoughts religious. Around the waiting
congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral
rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to
admit some dignitary the roar of cheering was heard
like a salvo saluting his entry. The Lord Mayor and
the Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by
mace-bearers ; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded
grandeur and robes, was a regretful memory of the
days when, as a Town Councillor's consort, she had at
least touched the hem of this unknown historic English
life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without — that
exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately
into her life. And then, a little later, the wild cheers
swept into the Cathedral like a furious wind, and the
thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the air, and
the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned
towards the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples.
How she looked for Simon !

The volunteers filed on, filed on — beardless youths
mostly, a few with a touch of thought in the face,

ANGLICIZATION 65

many with the honest nullity of the clerk and the shop-
man, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every face
set and serious. Ah ! at last, there was her Simon —
manlier, handsomer than them all ! But he did not
see her : he marched on stifHy ; he was already sucked
up into this strange life. Her heart grew heavy. But
it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The
newspapers the next day found fault with the plain
music, with the responses all in monotone, but to her
it was divine. Only the words of the opening hymn,
which she read in the c Form of Prayer,' discomforted

her :

' Fight the good fight with all thy might,
Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right.'

But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely
like was it to the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm !
Did they, then, pray the Jewish prayers in Christian
churches ? ' For He shall give His angels charge over
thee : to keep thee in all thy ways.' Ah ! how she
prayed that for Simon !

As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly,
inaudibly, in echoing, vaulted space, she studied the
hymns and verses, with their insistent Old Testament
savour, culminating in the farewell blessing :

' The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord
make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto
you. The Lord lift up the light of His countenance
upon you and give you peace.'

How often she had heard it in Hebrew from the
priests as they blessed the other tribes ! Her husband
himself had chanted it, with uplifted palms and
curiously grouped fingers. But never before had she
felt its beauty : she had never even understood its

5

66 GHETTO COMEDIES

words till she read the English of them in the gilt-
edged Prayer-Book that marked rising wealth. Surely
there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving
the two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she
only pretended to kneel with the others, she felt her
knees sinking in surrender to the larger life around her.

As the volunteers filed out and the cheers came
in, she wormed her way nearer to the aisle, scrambling
even over backs of chairs in the general mellay. This
time Simon saw her. He stretched out his martial
arm and blew her a kiss. Oh, delicious tears, full of
heartbreak and exaltation ! This was their farewell.

She passed out into the roaring crowd, with a
fantastic dream-sense of a night-sky and a great stone
building, dark with age and solemnity, and unreal
figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and
hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the pro-
cession and became part of its marching. She yearned
forwards to vague glories, aware of a poor past. She
ran with the crowd. How they cheered her boy !
Her boy ! She saw him carried off on the shoulders of
Christian citizens. Yes ; he was a hero. She was the
mother of a hero.

IX

The first news she got from him was posted at
St. Vincent. He wrote to her alone, with a jocose
hope that his father would be satisfied with his suffer-
ings on the voyage. Not only had the sea been rough,
but he had suffered diabolically from the inoculation
against enteric fever, which, even after he had got his

ANGLICIZATION 67

sea-legs, kept him to his berth and gave him a c Day
of Atonement ' thirst.

* Ah !' growled S. Cohn ; * he sees what a fool he's
been, and he'll take the next boat back.'

' But that would be desertion.'

* Well, he didn't mind deserting the business.'

Mr. Cohn's bewilderment increased with every
letter. The boy was sleeping in sodden trenches,
sometimes without blankets ; and instead of grumbling
at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was
not getting to the front. Heat and frost, hurricane and
dust-storm — nothing came amiss. And he described
himself as stronger than ever, and poured scorn on
the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him.

4 All the same,' sighed Hannah, ' I do hope they
will just be used to guard the lines of communication.'
She was full of war-knowledge acquired with painful
eagerness, prattled of Basuto ponies and Mauser
bullets, pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact
position of the armies, and marked her war-map with
coloured pins.

Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent
under the pressure of so much vivid new life, and from
his cheery letters she learned much that was not in the
papers, especially in those tense days when the C.I.V.'S
did at last get to the front — and remained there :
tales of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly
poisoned, and oxen dropping dead as they dragged the
convoys ; tales of muddle and accident, tales of British
soldiers slain by their own protective cannon as they
lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British
officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match ;
tales of hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and

5—2

68 GHETTO COMEDIES

putties worn to rags, and all the hidden miseries of
uncleanliness and insanitation that underlie the glories
of war. There were tales, too, of quarter-rations ;
but these she did not read to her husband, lest the
mention of c bully-beef ' should remind him of how
his son must be eating forbidden food. Once, even,
two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the
battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized
those letters and read them first. He began to speak
of his boy at the war — nay, to read the letters to en-
thralled groups in the synagogue lobby — groups that
swallowed without reproach the tripha meat cooked
in Simon's mess-tin.

It was like being Gabbai over again.

Moreover, Simon's view of the Boer was so strictly
orthodox as to give almost religious satisfaction to the
proud parent. ' A canting hypocrite, a psalm-singer
and devil-dodger, he has no civilization worth the
name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great
trek he has acquired, from long intercourse with his
Kafnr slaves, many of the native's savage traits. In
short, a born liar, credulous and barbarous, crassly
ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.'

' Crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,' re-
peated S. Cohn, pausing impressively. ' Haven't I
always said that ? The boy only bears out what I
knew without going there. But hear further ! "Is
it to be wondered at that the Boer farmer, hidden in
the vast undulations of the endless veldt, with his wife,
his children and his slaves, should lose all sense of pro-
portion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole know-
ledge filtering through Jo-burgh ?"
« As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was

ANGLICIZATION 69

suddenly borne in on his wife with a stab of insight
that he was reading a description of himself — nay, of
herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great world,
awaiting some vague future of glory that never came.
The important voice of her husband broke again upon
her reflections :

' " He has held many nights of supplication to his
fetish, and is still unconvinced that his God of Battles
is asleep." ' The reader chuckled, and a broad smile
overspread the synagogue lobby. ' " They are brave
— oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it — they are
good fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the
back of them, and a profound contempt for us. Their
whole life has been spent on the open veldt (we are
always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows
every inch of the ground), and they never risk any-
thing except in the trap sort of manoeuvres. The
brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to them, and
their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking
into a death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there
ever two races less alike ?" ' wound up the youthful
philosopher in his tent. ' " I really do not see how
they are to live together after the war."

' That's easy enough,' S. Cohn had already com-
mented to his wife as oracularly as if she did not read
the same morning paper. ' Intermarriage ! In a
generation or two there will be one fine Anglo-African
race. That's the solution — mark my words. And
you can tell the boy as much — only don't say I told
you to write to him.'

' Father says I'm to tell you intermarriage is the
solution,' Mrs. Cohn wrote obediently. ' He really is
getting much softer towards you.'

70 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Tell father that's nonsense,' Simon wrote back.
' The worst individuals we have to deal with come
from a Boer mother and an English father, deposited
here by the first Transvaal war.'

S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. * That was
because there were two Governments — he forgets
there will be only one United Empire now.'

He was not appeased till Private Cohn was pro-
moted, and sent home a thrilling adventure, which
the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby to for-
ward to the communal organ. The organ asked for
a photograph to boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only
Gabbai, but town councillor again.

This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed
printed copies to the staff of the Emporium with a bean-
feast air, ran ;

' We go out every day — I am speaking of my own
squadron — each officer taking his turn with twenty
to fifty men, and sweep round the farms a few miles
out ; and we seldom come back without seeing Boers
hanging round on the chance of a snipe at our flanks,
or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. The local
commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day — a
hundred and fifty to our twenty-five — and we suffered ;
it was a horrible bit of country. There was a young
chap, Winstay — rather a pal of mine — he had a
narrow squeak, knocked over by a shot in his breast.
I managed to get him safe back to camp — Heaven
knows how ! — and they made rne a lance-corporal, and
the beggar says I saved his life ; but it was really
through carrying a fat letter from his sister — not even
his sweetheart. We chaff him at missing such a

ANGLICIZATION 71

romantic chance. He got off with a flesh wound, but
there is a great blot of red ink on the letter. You
may imagine we were not anxious to let our comrades
go unavenged. My superiors being sick or otherwise
occupied, I was allowed to make a night-march with
thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away — just to
get square. It was a nasty piece of work, as we were
within a few miles of the Boer laager, three hundred
strong. There was moonlight, too — it was like a
dream, that strange, silent ride, with only the stumble
of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs.
We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dis-
mounting some thousand yards away, and fixing
bayonets. I told the men I wanted no shots — that
would have brought down the commando — but
cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept
the farm — it was weird, but, alas ! they were out on
the loot. The men were furious, but we live in
hopes.'

The end was a trifle disappointing, but S. Cohn,
too, lived in hopes — of some monstrous and memorable
butchery. Even his wife had got used to the firing-
line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm her
boy. ' For He shall give His angels charge over thee.'
She had come to think her secret daily repetition of
the ninety -first Psalm talismanic.

When Simon sent home the box which had held the
chocolates presented by the Queen, a Boer bullet, and
other curios, S. Cohn displayed them in his window,
and the crowd and the business they brought him put
him more and more in sympathy with Simon and the
Empire. In conversation he deprecated the non-

72 GHETTO COMEDIES

militarism of the Jew : ' If I were only a younger man
myself, sir. . . .'

The night Maf eking was relieved, the Emporium was
decorated with bunting from roof to basement, and a
great illuminated window revealed nothing but stacks
of khaki trouserings.

So that, although the good man still sulked over
Simon to his wife, she was not deceived ; and, the time
drawing nigh for Simon's return, she began to look
happily forward to a truly reunited family.

In her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that
it was her husband who would die. Yet this is what
the irony of fate brought to pass. In the unending
campaign which death wages with life, S. Cohn was
slain, and Simon returned unscratched from the war
to recite the Kaddish in his memory.

Simon came back bronzed and a man. The shock
of finding his father buried had supplied the last
transforming touch ; and, somewhat to his mother's
surprise, he settled down contentedly to the business
he had inherited. And now that he had practically
unlimited money to spend, he did not seem to be
spending it, but to be keeping better hours than when
dodging his father's eye. His only absences from
home he accounted for as visits to Winstay, his pal
of the campaign, with whom he had got chummier
than ever since the affair of the cattle-guard. Winstay,
he said, was of good English family, with an old house

ANGLICIZATION 73

in Harrow — fortunately on the London and North
Western Railway, so that he could easily get a breath
of country air on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
He seemed to have forgotten (although the Emporium
was still closed on Saturdays) that riding was for-
bidden, and his mother did not remind him of it.
The life that had been risked for the larger cause, she
vaguely felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the
smaller.

Nearly two months after Simon's return, a special
military service was held at the Great Synagogue on
the feast of Chanukah — the commemoration of the
heroic days of Judas Maccabaeus — and the Jewish
C.I.V.'s were among the soldiers invited. Mrs. Cohn,
too, got a ticket for the imposing ceremony which was
fixed for a Sunday afternoon.

As they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day,
Mrs. Cohn said suddenly : ' Guess who paid me a visit
yesterday.'

c Goodness knows,' said Simon.

' Mr. Sugarman.' And she smiled nervously.

' Sugarman ?' repeated Simon blankly.

4 The — the — er — the matrimonial agent.'

' What impudence ! Before your year of mourning
is up !'

Mrs. Cohn's sallow face became one flame. ' Not
me ! You !' she blurted.

6 Me ! Well, of all the cheek !' And Simon's flush
matched his mother's.

' Oh, it's not so unreasonable,' she murmured depre-
catingly. ' I suppose he thought you would be looking
for a wife before long ; and naturally,' she added, her
voice growing bolder, * I should like to see you settled

74 GHETTO COMEDIES

before I follow your father. After all, you are no
ordinary match. Sugarman says there isn't a girl in
Bays water, even, who would refuse you.'

' The very reason for refusing them,' cried Simon
hotly. ' What a ghastly idea, that your wife would
just as soon have married any other fellow with the'
same income !'

Mrs. Cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely
exalted by it, as by the organ in St. Paul's, and strange
tears of shame came to complicate her emotions
further. She remembered how she had been exported
from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah !
how this new young generation was snapping asunder
the ancient coils ! how the new and diviner sap ran
in its veins !

* I shall only marry a girl I love, mother. And it's
not likely to be one of these Jewish girls, I tell you
frankly/

She trembled. ' One of which Jewish girls ?' she
faltered.

1 Oh, any sort. They don't appeal to me.'

Her face grew sallower. ' I am glad your father
isn't alive to hear that,' she breathed.

' But father said intermarriage is the solution,' re-
torted Simon.

Mrs. Cohn was struck dumb. ' He was thinking how
to make the Boers English,' she said at last.

' And didn't he say the Jews must be English, too ?'

* Aren't there plenty of Jewish girls who are English ?'
she murmured miserably.

' You mean, who don't care a pin about the old
customs ? Then where's the difference ?' retorted
Simon.

ANGLICIZATION 75

The meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and
Simon went off to don his khaki regimentals and join
in the synagogue parade.

Mrs. Cohn's heart was heavy as she dressed for the
same spectacle. Her brain was busy piecing it all
together. Yes, she understood it all now — those
sedulous Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Harrow.
She lived at Harrow, then, this Christian, this grateful
sister of the rescued Winstay': it was she who had
steadied his life ; hers were those ' fat letters,' faintly
aromatic. It must be very wonderful, this strange
passion, luring her son from his people with its for-
bidden glamour. How Highbury would be scandalized,
robbed of so eligible a bridegroom ! The sons-in-law
she had enriched would reproach her for the shame
imported into the family — they who had cleaved to the
Faith ! And — more formidable than all the rest — she
heard the tongue of her cast-off seaport, to whose
reverence or disesteem she still instinctively referred
all her triumphs and failures.

Yet, on the Other hand, surged her hero-son's scorn
at the union by contract consecrated by the genera-
tions ! But surely a compromise could be found. He
should have love — this strange English thing — but
could he not find a Jewess ? Ah, happy inspiration !
he should marry a quite poor Jewess — he had money
enough, thank Heaven ! That would show him he
was not making a match, that he was truly in love.

But this strange girl at Harrow— he would never be
happy with her ! No, no ; there were limits to
Anglicization.

76 GHETTO COMEDIES

XI

It was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue,
relieved from the squeeze of entry in the wake of
soldiers and the exhilaration of hearing ' See the Con-
quering Hero comes ' pealing, she knew not whence,
that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to
the consciousness that she was actually sitting among
the men — just as in St. Paul's. And what men !
Everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms, the
glister of gold lace — the familiar decorous lines of
devout top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-
skins, white nodding plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock,
glengarries, all the colour of the British army, mixed
with the feathered jauntiness of the Colonies and the
khaki sombreros of the C.I.V.'s ! Coldstream Guards,
Scots Guards, Dragoon Guards, Lancers, Hussars,
Artillery, Engineers, King's Royal Rifles, all the corps
that had for the first time come clearly into her con-
sciousness in her tardy absorption into English realities,
Jews seemed to be among them all. And without con-
scription— oh, what would poor Solomon have thought
of that ?

The Great Synagogue itself struck a note of modern
English gaiety, as of an hotel dining-room, freshly
gilded, divested of its historic mellowness, the electric
light replacing the ancient candles and flooding the
winter afternoon with white resplendence. The pulpit
— yes, the pulpit — was swathed in the Union Jack ;
and looking towards the box of the Parnass and
Gabbai, she saw it was occupied by officers with gold
sashes. Somebody whispered that he with the medalled

ANGLICIZATION 77

breast was a Christian Knight and Commander of the
Bath — * a great honour for the synagogue !' What !
were Christians coming to Jewish services, even as she
had gone to Christian ? Why, here was actually a
white cross on an officer's sleeve.

And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning
his Hebrew chant on the steps of the Ark, lit the great
many-branched Chanukah candlestick. Truly, the
world was changing under her eyes.

And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark in
his turn, she saw that he wore a strange scarlet and
white gown (military, too, she imagined in her ignor-
ance), and — oh, even rarer sight ! — he was followed by
a helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the
ornate Scrolls of the Law.

And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a
sweetness through her blood. An organ ! An organ
in the Synagogue ! Ah ! here indeed was Anglicization.

It was thin and reedy even to her ears, compared
with that divine resonance in St. Paul's : a tinkling
apology, timidly disconnected from the congregational
singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the
service — she read afterwards that it was only a har-
monium— yet it brought a strange exaltation, and
there was an uplifting even to tears in the glittering
uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon's eyes met his
mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed
between them.

There was a sermon — the text taken with dual
appropriateness from the Book of Maccabees. Fully
one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the preacher,
had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the
Queen's dominions. Their beloved country had no

78 GHETTO COMEDIES

more devoted citizens than the children of Israel who
had settled under her flag. They had been gratified,
but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names
of more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and
country. Many more had gone unrecorded, so that
they had proportionally contributed more soldiers —
from Colonel to bugler-boy — than their mere numbers
would warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were
the Englishman and the Jew whose Scriptures he had
imbibed, that it was no accident that the Anglophobes
of Europe were also Anti-Semites.

And then the congregation rose, while the preacher
behind the folds of the Union Jack read out the names
of the Jews who had died for England in the far-off
veldt. Every head was bent as the names rose on the
hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this
list, reeking with each bloody historic field, recalling
every regiment, British or colonial ; on and on in the
reverent silence, till a black pall seemed to descend,
inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had
never dreamed so many of her brethren had died out
there. Ah ! surely they were knit now, these races :
their friendship sealed in blood !

As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed
towards Simon and seized his hand for an instant,
whispering passionately : * My lamb, marry her — we
are all English alike.'

Nor did she ever know that she had said these words
in Yiddish !

ANGLICIZATION 79

XII

Now came an enchanting season of confidences ;
the mother, caught up in the glow of this strange love,
learning to see the girl through the boy's eyes, though
the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of a
plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The
time was not ripe yet for bringing Lucy and her
together, he explained. In fact, he hadn't actually
proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for
the year of mourning to be up.

4 But how will you be married ?' she once asked.

' Oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly.

4 But can't you make her a proselyte ?' she ventured
timidly.

He coloured. ' It would be absurd to suddenly start
talking religion to her.'

' But she knows you're a Jew.'

* Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother,
so why shouldn't she know ? But her father's a bit
of a crank, so I rather avoid the subject.'

' A crank ? About Jews ?'

' Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that
the Jews are responsible for the war — and that they
leave the fighting to the English. It's rather sicken-
ing : even in South Africa we are not treated as we
should be, considering '

Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. ' But how
can he say that, when you yourself — when you saved
his '

4 Well, I suppose just because he knows I was
fighting, he doesn't think of me as a Jew. It's a bit

8o GHETTO COMEDIES

illogical, I know.' And he smiled ruefully. ' But,
then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'

1 He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn,
as she recalled the photograph of the white-haired
cherub writing with a quill at a property desk.

* Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's
why I don't help him into the saddle.'

' But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven
hundred at least to the war ?' she persisted. ' Why,
the paper had all their photographs !'

' What paper ?' said Simon, laughing. c Do you
suppose he reads the Jewish what's-a-name, like
you ? Why, he's never heard of it !'

' Then you ought to show him a copy.'

' Oh, mother !' and he laughed again. ' That would
only prove to him there are too many Jews every-
where.'

A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn's hard- won
content. But apparently it only shadowed her own
horizon. Simon was as happily full of his Lucy as
ever.

Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when
Simon returned from Harrow earlier than his wont,
and Hannah's dog-like eye noted that the cloud had at
last reached his brow.

' You have had a quarrel ?' she cried.

' Only with the old boy.'

* But what about ?'

' The old driveller has just joined some League of
Londoners for the suppression of the immigrant alien.'

' But you should have told him we all agree there
should be decentralization,' said Mrs. Cohn, quoting
her favourite Jewish organ.

ANGLIC1ZATION

81

' It isn't that— it's the old fellow's vanity that's
hurt. You see, he composed the " Appeal to the
Briton," and gloated over it so conceitedly that I
couldn't help pointing out the horrible contradictions.'

' But Lucy ' his mother began anxiously.

' Lucy's a brick. I don't know what my life would
have been without the little darling. But listen,
mother.' And he drew out a portentous prospectus.
' They say aliens should not be admitted unless they
produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the
same breath they accuse them of taking the work
away from the British workman. Now this isn't a
Jewish question, and I didn't raise it as such — just a
piece of muddle — and even as an Englishman I can't
see how we can exclude Outlanders here after fighting
for the Outland '

' But Lucy ' his mother interrupted.

His vehement self-assertion passed into an affec-
tionate smile.

' Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows
the old boy's vanity. Of course she couldn't side with
me openly.'

' But what will happen ? Will you go there again ?'

The cloud returned to his brow. 'Oh, well, we'll
see.'

A letter from Lucy saved him the trouble of deciding
the point.

' DEAR SILLY OLD SIM,' it ran,

' Father has been going on dreadfully, so you
had better wait a few Sundays till he has cooled down.
After all, you yourself admit there is a grievance of
congestion and high rents in the East End. And it is

6

82 GHETTO COMEDIES

only natural— isn't it ?— that after shedding our blood
and treasure for the Empire we should not be in a mood
to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.'

'Dirty!' muttered Simon, as he read. 'Has she
seen the Christian slums — Flower and Dean Street ?'
And his handsome Oriental brow grew duskier with
anger. It did not clear till he came to :

' Let us meet at the Crystal Palace next Saturday,
dear quarrelsome person. Three o'clock, in the
Pompeian Room. I have got an aunt at Sydenham,
and I can go in to tea after the concert and hear all
about the missionary work in the South Sea Islands.'

XIII

•' Ensued a new phase in the relation of Simon and
Lucy. Once they had met in freedom, neither felt
inclined to revert to the restricted courtship of the
drawing-room. Even though their chat was merely
of books and music and pictures, it was delicious to
make their own atmosphere, untroubled by the
flippancy of the brother or the earnestness of the
father. In the presence of Lucy's artistic knowledge
Simon was at once abashed and stimulated. She
moved in a delicate world of symphonies and silver-
point drawings of whose very existence he had been
unaware, and reverence quickened the sense of romance
which their secret meetings had already enhanced.
Once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to

ANGLICIZATION 83

Harrow, but the longer he delayed the more difficult
the conciliatory visit grew.

' Father is now deeper in the League than ever,'
she told him. ' He has joined the committee, and the
prospectus has gone forth in all its glorious self-contra-
diction.'

' But, considering I am the son of an alien, and I
have fought for '

' There, there ! quarrelsome person,' she inter-
rupted laughingly. 'No, no, no, you had better not
come till you can forget your remote genealogy. You
see, even now father doesn't quite realize you are a
Jew. He thinks you have a strain of Jewish blood,
but are in every other respect a decent Christian
body.'

' Christian !' cried Simon in horror.

' Why not ? You fought side by side with my
brother ; you ate ham with us.'

Simon blushed hotly. ' But, Lucy, you don't
think religion is ham ?'

' What, then ? Merely Shem ?' she laughed.

Simon laughed too. How clever she was ! ' But
you know I never could believe in the Trinity and all
that. And, what's more, I don't believe you do your-
self.'

' It isn't exactly what one believes. I was baptized
into the Church of England — I feel myself a member.
Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully argumentative and
quarrelsome person.'

' I'll never quarrel with you, Lucy,' he said half
entreatingly ; for somehow he felt a shiver of cold at
the word ' baptized,' as though himself plunged into
the font.

6—2

84 GHETTO COMEDIES

In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue
or decision till the summer itself glided away. Mrs.
Cohn, anxiously following the courtship through Sim's
love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the girl be
brought to see her received with equal postponement,
began to fret for the great thing to come to pass. One
cannot be always heroically stiffened to receive the
cavalry of communal criticism. Waiting weakens the
backbone. But she concealed from her boy these
flaccid relapses.

' You said you'd bring her to see me when she re-
turned from the seaside,' she ventured to remind him.

4 So I did"; but now her father is dragging her away
to Scotland.'

' You ought to get married the moment she gets
back.'

' I can't expect her to rush things — with her father
to square. Still, you are not wrong, mother. It's
high time we came to a definite understanding between
ourselves at least.'

' What !' gasped Mrs. Cohn. * Aren't you en-
gaged ?'

4 Oh, in a way, of course. But we've never said so
in so many words.'

For fear this should be the ' English ' way, Mrs.
Cohn forbore to remark that the definiteness of the
Sugarman method was not without compensations.
She merely applauded Simon's more sensible mood.

But Mrs. Cohn was fated to a further season of fret.
Day after day the ' fat letters ' arrived with the
Scottish postmark and the faint perfume that always
stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance — some-
thing far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses

ANGLICIZATION 85

and the salt of tears. And still the lover, floating in
his golden mist, vouchsafed her no definite news.

One night she found him restive beyond his wont.
She knew the reason. For two days there had been no
scented letter, and she saw how he started at every
creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last post.
When at length a step was heard crunching on the
gravel, he rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard
the hall-door open. Her ear, disappointed of the rat-
tat, morbidly followed every sound ; but it seemed a
long time before her boy's returning footstep reached
her. The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her
nerves, and her heart grew sick with premonition.

He held out the letter towards her. His face was
white. ' She cannot marry me, because I am a Jew,' he
said tonelessly.

6 Cannot marry you !' she whispered huskily. * Oh,
but this must not be ! I will go to the father ; I will
explain ! You saved his son — he owes you his
daughter.'

He waved her hopelessly back to her seat — for she
had started up. 'It isn't the father, it's herself.
Now that I won't let her drift any longer, she can't
bring herself to it. She's honest, anyway, my little
Lucy. She won't fall back on the old Jew-baiter.'

' But how dare she — how dare she think herself
above you !' Her dog-like eyes were blazing yet once
again.

'Why are you Jews surprised?' he said bitterly.
' You've held yourself aloof from the others long
enough, God knows. Yet you wonder they've got
their prejudices, too.'

And, suddenly laying his head on the table, he broke

86 GHETTO COMEDIES

into sobs — sobs that tore at his mother's heart, that
were charged with memories of his ancient tears, of
the days of paternal wrath and the rending of ' The
Pirates of Pechili.' And, again, as in the days when
his boyish treasures were changed to ashes, she stole
towards him, with an involuntary furtive look to see
if S. Cohn's back was turned, and laid her hands upon
his heaving shoulders. But he shook her off ! ' Why
didn't a Boer bullet strike me down ?' Then with a
swift pang of remorse he raised his contorted face and
drew hers close against it — their love the one thing
saved from Anglicization.

THE JEWISH TRINITY

THE JEWISH TRINITY

WITH the Christian Mayoress of Middleton to take in
to dinner at Sir Asher Aaronsberg's, Leopold Barstein
as a Jewish native of that thriving British centre,
should have felt proud and happy. But Barstein was
young and a sculptor, fresh from the Paris schools and
Salon triumphs. He had long parted company with
Jews and Judaism, and to his ardent irreverence even
the Christian glories of Middleton seemed unspeakably
parochial. In Paris he had danced at night on the
Boule Miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in
choruses over midnight bocks ; and London itself now
seemed drab and joyless, though many a gay circle
welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the physical
graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to
shed a blonde radiance all around him. The factories
of Middleton, which had manufactured Sir Asher
Aaronsberg, ex-M.P., and nearly all his wealthy guests,
were to his artistic eye an outrage upon a beautiful
planet, and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile
revolt in which one speaks one's thoughts of the mess
humanity has made of its world. But, unfortunately,
the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he

89

90 GHETTO COMEDIES

could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was
extremely disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies
met with an equally bland smile. On his other hand
sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly charitable
relict of ' The People's Clothier,' whose ugly pictorial
posters had overshadowed Barstein's youth. Little
wonder that the artist's glance frequently wandered
across the great shining table towards a girl who, if
they had not been so plaguily intent on honouring his
fame, might have now been replacing the Mayoress at
his side. True, the girl was merely a Jewess, and he dis-
liked the breed. But Mabel Aaronsberg was unexpected.
She had a statuesque purity of outline and complexion ;
seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of his own.
How the tedious old manufacturer could have produced
this marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the
sculptor, as he almost silently ate his way through the
long and exquisite menu.

Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque.
Indeed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly
Briton, white-bearded like Father Christmas. But he
did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and
purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied
the missing link, was dead — before even arriving at
ladyship, alas ! — and when she was alive Barstein had
not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high
municipal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign
fame, and to his invitation by the Corporation to help
in the organization of a local Art Exhibition.

' I do admire Sir Asher,' the Mayoress broke in sud-
denly upon his reflections ; ' he seems to me exactly
like your patriarchs.'

A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir

THE JEWISH TRINITY 91

Asher, with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled
to the sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever
crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling Rem-
brandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly : ' Our
patriarchs were polygamists.'

' Exactly,' assented the deaf Mayoress.

Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his state-
ment in a shout, but neither the pitch nor the proposi-
tion seemed suitable to the dinner-table. The
Mayoress added ecstatically : ' You can imagine him
sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.'

This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter.
All eyes turned a bit enviously in his direction.
' You're having all the fun down there,' called out Sir
Asher benevolently ; and the bluff Briton — even to the
northerly burr — was so vividly stamped upon Bar-
stein's mind that he wondered the more that the
Mayoress could see him as anything but the prosy,
provincial, whilom Member of Parliament he so
transparently was. c A mere literary illusion,' he
thought. * She has read the Bible, and now reads Sir
Asher into it. As well see a Saxon pirate or a Norman
jongleur in a modern Londoner.'

As if to confirm Barstein's vision of the bluff and
burly Briton, Sir Asher was soon Heard over the clatter
of conversation protesting vehemently against the views
of Tom Fuller, the degenerate -son of a Tory squire.

' Give Ireland Home Rule ?' he was crying passion-
ately. ' Oh, my dear Mr. Fuller, it would be the
beginning of the end of our Empire !'

' But the Irish have as much right to govern them-
selves as we have !' the young Englishman maintained.

' They would not so much govern themselves as mis-

92 GHETTO COMEDIES

govern the Protestant minority,' cried Sir Asher,
becoming almost epigrammatic in his excitement.
* Home Rule simply means the triumph of Roman
Catholicism.'

It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the
defeat of Roman Catholicism meant no victory for
Judaism, but he stayed his tongue with a salted
almond. Let the Briton make the running. This the
young gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace.

1 Then how about Home Rule for India ? There's
no Catholic majority there !'

' Give up India !' Sir Asher opened horrified eyes.
This heresy was new to him. ' Give up the brightest
jewel in the British crown ! And let the Russian
bear come and swallow it up ! No, no ! A thousand
times no !' Sir Asher even gestured with his fork
in his patriotic fervour, forgetting he was not on the
platform.

' So I imagine the patriarchs to have talked !' said
the Mayoress, admiringly observing his animation.
Whereat the sculptor laughed once more. He was
A amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion
of Judah had endued himself with the skin of the British
Hon. To a cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois patrio-
tism was peculiarly irritating. But soon his eyes
wandered again towards Miss Aaronsberg, and he forgot
trivialities.

THE JEWISH TRINITY 93

II

The end of the meal was punctuated, not by the
rising of the ladies, but by the host's assumption of a
black cap, which popped up from his coat-tail pocket.
With his head thus orientally equipped for prayer, Sir
Asher suddenly changed into a Rembrandtesque figure,
his white beard hiding the society shirtfront ; and as he
began intoning the grace in Hebrew, the startled Baj-
stein felt that the Mayoress had at least a superficial
justification. There came to him a touch of new and
artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-M.P., who,
environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of
his glittering dinner-table uttering the language of the
ancient prophets ; and he respected at least the sturdi-
ness with which Miss Aaronsberg's father wore his faith,
like a phylactery, on his forehead. It said much for
his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once
elected him as their Member, despite his unpopular
creed and race, and were now willing to sit at his table
under this tedious benediction. Sir Asher did not even
let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by
a wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as
was visible it was only the Jewish guests — comically
distinguished by serviettes shamefacedly dabbed on
their heads — who fidgeted under the pious torrent.
These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians
whose precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous
tenure. In the host's son Julius a superadded intel-
lectual impatience was traceable. He had brought
back from Oxford a contempt for his father's creed
which was patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. Bar-

94 GHETTO COMEDIES

stein, observing all this uneasiness, became curiously
angry with his fellow- Jews, despite that he had scrupu-
lously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette ;
a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up
through all his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously
trusted that the brave Sir Asher would pray his longest.
He himself had been a tolerable Hebraist in his forcedly
pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor
heard any Hebrew prayers for many a year, his new
artistic interest led him to listen to the grace, and to
disentangle the meaning from the obscuring layers of
verbal association and from the peculiar chant en-
livened by occasional snatches of melody with which
it was intoned.

How he had hated this grace as a boy — this pious
task-work that almost spoilt the anticipation of meals !
But to-night, after so long an interval, he could look
at it without prejudice, and with artistic aloofness
render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value.

' We thank Thee, 0 Lord our God, because Thou didst
give as an heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and
ample land, and because Thou didst bring us forth, 0
Lord our God, from the land of Egypt, and didst deliver
us from the house of bondage

Barstein heard no more for the moment ; the paradox
of this retrospective gratitude was too absorbing.
What ! Sir Asher was thankful because over three
thousand years ago his ancestors had obtained — not
without hard fighting for it — a land which had already
been lost again for eighteen centuries. What a mar-
vellous long memory for a race to have !

Delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth ! Sir
Asher, himself — and here a musing smile crossed the

THE JEWISH TRINITY 95

artist's lips — had never even known a house of bondage,
unless, indeed, the House of Commons (from which he
had been delivered by the Radical reaction) might be
so regarded, and his own house was, as he was fond of
saying, Liberty Hall. But that the Russian Jew should
still rej oice in the redemption from Egypt ! O miracle
of pious patience ! O sublime that grazed the ridiculous !

But Sir Asher was still praying on :

' Have mercy, 0 Lord our God, upon Israel Thy people,
upon Jerusalem Thy city, upon Zion the abiding place of
Thy glory, upon the kingdom of the house of David, Thine
anointed . . .'

Barstein lost himself in a fresh reverie. Here was
indeed the Palestinian patriarch. Not with the cor-
poration of Middleton, nor the lobbies of Westminster,
not with his colossal business, not even with the glories
of the British Empire, was Sir Asher's true heart.
He had but caught phrases from the environment.
To his deepest self he was not even a Briton. c Have
mercy, 0 Lord, upon Israel Thy people.' Despite all his
outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one of
that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who
had for eighteen centuries resisted alike the storm of
persecution and the sunshine of tolerance, and whose
one consolation in the long exile was the dream of Zion.
The artist in Barstein began to thrill. What more
fascinating than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath
the manufacturer, the Hebrew visionary behind the
English M.P. !

This palatial dwelling-place with its liveried lackeys
was, then,' no fort of Philistinism in which an artist
must needs asphyxiate, but a very citadel of the spirit.
A new respect for his host began to steal upon him.

95 GHETTO COMEDIES

Involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter ;
the secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious.
Old Asher had a soul, and ' the soul is form and doth
the body make.'

Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the
sensitive artist, the Rembrandt esque figure prayed on :
* And rebuild Jerusalem , the holy city, speedily and in
our days . . .'

It was the climax of the romance that had so
strangely stolen over the British dinner-table. Rebuild
Jerusalem to-day ! Did Jews really conceive it as a
contemporary possibility ? Barstein went hot and
cold. The idea was absolutely novel to him ; evidently
as a boy he had not understood his own prayers or his
own people. All his imagination was inflamed. He
conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir
Asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his
daughter : the great Empire that would spring from
the unity and liberty of a race which even under dis-
persion and oppression was one of the most potent
peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at
last rose, he was in so deep a reverie that he almost
forgot to rise too, and when he did rise, he accompanied
the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss Aarons-
berg's tactful ' Don't you want to smoke ?' that saved
him.

* Almost as long a grace as the dinner !' Tom Fuller
murmured to him as he returned to the table. ' Do
the Jews say that after every meal ?'

' They're supposed to,' Barstein replied, a little jarred
as he picked up a cigar.

' No wonder they beat the Christians,' observed the
young Radical, who evidently took original views.

THE JEWISH TRINITY 97

4 So much time for digestion would enable any race to
survive in this age of quick lunches. In America, now
they should rule the roast. Literally,' he added, with,
a laugh.

' It's a beautiful grace,' said Barstein rebukingly.
' The glamour of Zion thrown over the prose of diet.'

1 You're not a Jew ?' said Tom, with a sudden sus-
picion.

4 Yes, I am,' the artist replied with a dignity that
surprised himself.

' I should never have taken you for one !' said Tom
ingenuously.

Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction.
' But why ?' he asked himself instantly. ' To feel
complimented at not being taken for a Jew — what does
it mean ? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my
nature ? Has our race reached self-contempt ?'

' I beg your pardon,' Tom went on. 'I didn't mean
to be irreverent. I appreciate the picturesqueness of
it all — hearing the very language of the Bible, and all
that. And I do sympathize with your desire for
Jewish Home Rule.'

' My desire ?' murmured the artist, taken aback.
Sir Asher here interrupted them by pressing his '48
port upon both, and directing the artist's attention in
particular to the pictures that hung around the stately
dining-room. There was a Gainsborough, a Reynolds,
a Landseer. He drew Barstein round the walls.

* I am very fond of the English school,' he said. His
cap was back in his coat-tail, and he had become again
the bluff and burly Briton.

' You don't patronize the Italians at all ?' asked the
artist.

98 GHETTO COMEDIES

e No,' said Sir Asher. He lowered his voice. ' Be-
tween you and I,' said he — it was his main fault of
grammar — ' in Italian art one is never safe from the
Madonna, not to mention her Son.' It was a fresh
reminder of the Palestinian patriarch. Sir Asher never
discussed theology except with those who agreed with
him. Nor did he ever, whether in private or in public,
breathe an unfriendly word against his Christian fellow-
citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he would
frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of
hearts he cherished a contempt, softened by stupefac-
tion, for the arithmetical incapacity of Trinitarians.

Christianity under any other aspect did not exist for
him. It was a blunder impossible to a race with a
genius for calculation. ' How can three be one ?' he
would demand witheringly of his cronies. The ques-
tion was in his eye now as he summed up Italian art
to the sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his
lips invited his fellow- Jew to share with him his feeling
of spiritual and intellectual superiority to the poor blind
Christians at his table, as well as to Christendom
generally. 0

But the artist refused to come up on the pedestal.
' Surely the Madonna was a very beautiful conception,'
he said.

Sir Asher looked startled. ' Ah yes, you are an
artist,' he remembered. ' You think only of the beau-
tiful outside. But how can there be three-in-one or
one-in-three ?'

Barstein did not reply, and Sir Asher added in a low
scornful tone : ' Neither confounding the persons, nor
dividing the substance.'

THE JEWISH TRINITY 99

III

A sudden commission recalled Barstein to town
before he could even pay his after-dinner call. But
the seed sown in his soul that evening was not to be
stifled. This seed was nothing less than the idea of a
national revival of his people. He hunted up his old
prayer-books, and made many discoveries as his
modern consciousness depolarized page upon page that
had never in boyhood been anything to him but a
series of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as pos-
sible, when their meaning was not still further overlaid
by being sung slowly to a tune. ' I might as well have
turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as he per-
ceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down
by the Roman Empire and by every power that had
reigned since, had preserved its aspiration for its old
territory. And this mystery of race and blood, this
beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically
incarnate in Mabel Aaronsberg.

He did not move one inch out of his way to see her,
because he saw her all day long. She appeared all
over his studio in countless designs in clay. But from
this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening
insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he
sought out from the slums and small synagogues of the
East End strange forlorn figures, with ragged curls
and wistful eyes. It was from one of these figures that
he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion,
whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was
shared by myriads, and had even materialized into a
national movement.

7—2

TOO GHETTO COMEDIES

He joined the movement, and it led him into strange
conventicles. He was put on a committee which met
in a little back-room, and which at first treated him
and his arguments with deference, soon with famili-
arity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and
cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their
ideals than he could, with far greater command of
Talmudic quotation, while their knowledge of how to
run their local organization was naturally superior.
But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty
wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished
the movement he retained his inner exaltation. He
had at last found himself and found his art. He fell
to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the
awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet
of resurrection. It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist
Congress, where it caused a furore, and where the artist
met other artists who had long been working under the
very inspiration which was so novel to him, and whose
work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust
and book, and even postcard. Some of them were setting
out for Palestine to start a School of Arts and Crafts.

Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime
the Bohemian circles which he had adorned with his
gaiety and good-fellowship had been wondering what
had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions
supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to
meet him reported dolefully that he was a changed man.
Gone was the light-hearted and light-footed dancer of
the Paris pavement . Silent the licentious wit of the neo-
Pagan. This was a new being with brooding brow and
pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his dream,
Never had Bohemia known such a transformation.

THE JEWISH TRINITY

101

IV

But a change came over the spirit of the dream.
Before he could seriously plan out his journey to
Palestine, he met Mabel Aaronsberg in the flesh. She
was staying in town for the season in charge of an aunt,
and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the
newer art, in front of Mabel's own self in marble. She
praised the Psyche without in the least recognising
herself, and Barstein, albeit disconcerted, could not
but admit how far his statue was from the breathing
beauty of the original.

After this the Jewish borderland of Bohemia, where
writers and painters are courted, began to see Barstein
again. But, unfortunately, this was not Mabel's circle,
and Barstein was reduced to getting himself invited to
that Jewish Bays water, his loathing for which had not
been overcome even by his new-found nationalism.
Here, amid hundreds of talking and dancing shadows,
with which some shadowy self of his own danced and
talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of reality —
with Mabel.

One could not be real and not talk of the national
dream. Mabel, who took most of her opinions from
her brother Julius, was frankly puzzled, though her
marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her lover
from premature shocks. She had, indeed, scarcely
heard of such things. Zionism was something in the
East End. Nobody in her class ever mentioned it.
But, then, Barstein was a sculptor and strange, and,
besides, he did not look at alHike a Jew, so it didn't
sound so horrible in his mouth. His lithe figure stood

102 GHETTO COMEDIES

out almost Anglo-Saxon amid the crowds of hulking
undersized young men, and though his manners were
not so good as a Christian's — she never forgot his
blunder at her father's dinner-party — still, he looked up
to one with almost a Christian's adoration, instead of
sizing one up with an Oriental's calculation. These
other London Jews thought her provincial, she knew,
whereas Barstein had one day informed her she was
universal. Julius, too, had admired Barstein's sculp-
ture, the modern note in which had been hailed by
the Oxford elect. But what most fascinated Mabel
was the constant eulogy of her lover's work in the
Christian papers ; and when at last the formal proposal
came, it found her fearful only of her father's dis-
approval.

' He's so orthodox,' she murmured, as they sat
in a rose-garlanded niche at a great Jewish Charity
Ball, lapped around by waltz-music and the sweetness
of love confessed.

' Well, I'm not so wicked as I was,' he smiled.
' But you smoke on the Sabbath, Leo — you told me.'
* And you told me your brother Julius does the
same.'

' Yes, but father doesn't know. If Julius wants to
smoke on Friday evening, he always goes to his own
room.'

1 And I shan't smoke in your father's.'
1 No — but you'll tell him. You're so outspoken.'
' Well, I won't tell him — unless he asks me.'
She looked sad. ' He won't ask you — he'll never
get as far.'

He smiled confidently. ' You're not very encourag-
ing, dear ; what's the matter with me ?'

THE JEWISH TRINITY 103

' Everything. You're an artist, with all sorts of
queer notions. And you're not so ' — she blushed and

hesitated — ' not so rich '

He pressed her fingers. ' Yes, I am ; I'm the richest
man here.'

A little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though
they went on : ' But you told me your profits are small
— marble is so dear.'

* So is celibacy. I shall economize dreadfully by
marrying.'

She pouted ; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the
situation, and he seemed scarcely to realize that she
was an heiress. But he continued to laugh away her
fears. She was so beautiful and he was so strong
—what could stand between them ? Certainly not the
Palestinian patriarch with whose inmost psychology he
had, fortunately, become in such cordial sympathy.

But Mabel's pessimism was not to be banished even
by the supper champagne. They had secured a little
table for two, and were recklessly absorbed in them-
selves.

' At the worst, we can elope to Palestine,' he said at
last, gaily serious.

Mabel shuddered. c Live entirely among Jews !'
she cried.

The radiance died suddenly out of his face ; it was
as if she had thrust the knife she was wielding through
his heart. Her silent reception of his nationalist rhap-
sodies he had always taken for agreement.

Nor might Mabel have undeceived him had his ideas
remained Platonic. Their irruption into the world of
practical politics, into her own life, was, however,
another pair of shoes. Since Barstein had brought

io4 GHETTO COMEDIES

Zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that dis-
tinguished Christians were quite sympathetic, but
this was the one subject on which Christian opinion
failed to impress Mabel. * Zionism's all very well for
Christians — they're in no danger of having to go to
Palestine,' she had reflected shrewdly.

' And why couldn't you live entirely among Jews ?'
Barstein asked slowly.

Mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a
suffocating weight. ' One couldn't breathe,' she ex-
plained.

' Aren't you living among Jews now ?'

' Don't look so glum, silly. You don't want Jews
as background as well as foreground. A great Ghetto !'
And again she shuddered instinctively.

' Every other people is background as well as fore-
ground. And you don't call France a Ghetto or Italy
a Ghetto ?' There was anti-Semitism, he felt — un-
conscious anti-Semitism — behind Mabel's instinctive
repugnance to an aggregation of Jews. And he knew
that her instinct would be shared by every Jew in that
festive aggregation around him. His heart sank.
Never — even in those East End back-rooms where the
pitiful disproportion of his consumptive-looking col-
laborators to their great task was sometimes borne in
dismally upon him — had he felt so black a despair as
in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that
was strong and strenuous in the race — lawyers and
soldiers, and men of affairs, whose united forces and
finances could achieve almost anything they set their
heart upon.

' Jews can't live off one another,' Mabel explained
with an air of philosophy.

THE JEWISH TRINITY 105

Barstein did not reply. He was asking himself with
an artist's analytical curiosity whence came this sui-
cidal anti-Semitism. Was it the self -contempt natural
to a race that had not the strength to build and fend
for itself ? No, alas ! it did not even spring from so
comparatively noble a source. It was merely a part
of their general imitation of their neighbours — Jews,
reflecting everything, had reflected even the dislike for
the Jew ; only since the individual could not dislike
himself, he applied the dislike to the race. And this
- unconscious assumption of the prevailing point of view
was quickened by the fact that the Jewish firstcomers
were always aware of an existence on sufferance, with
their slowly-won privileges jeopardized if too many
other Jews came in their wake. He consulted his own
pre-Zionist psychology . ' Yes, ' he decided . ' Every J ew
who moves into our country, our city, our watering-
place, our street even, seems to us an invader or an
interloper. He draws attention to us, he accentuates our
difference from the normal, he increases the chance of
the renewal of Rishus (malice) . And so we become anti-
Semites ourselves. But by what a comical confusion
of logic is it that we carry over the objection to Jewish
aggregation even to an aggregation in Palestine, in
our own land ! Or is it only too logical ? Is it that
the rise of a Jewish autonomous power would be a
standing reminder to our fellow-citizens that we others
are not so radically British or German or French or
American as we have vaunted ourselves ? Are we
afraid of being packed off to Palestine and is the fulfil-
ment of the dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest
dread ?'

The thought forced from him a sardonic smile.

io6 GHETTO COMEDIES

' And I feared you were like King Henry — never
going to smile again.' Mabel smiled back in relief.

1 We're such a ridiculous people,' he answered, his
smile fading into sombreness. ' Neither fish, flesh,
fowl, nor good red herring.'

1 Well, finish your good white fowl,' laughed Mabel.
She had felt her hold over him slipping, and her own
apprehensions now vanished in the effort to banish his
gloom.

But she had only started him on a new tack.
' Fowl !' he cried grimly. ' Kosher, of course, but with
bits of fried Wurst to ape the scraps of bacon. And
presently we shall be having water ices to simulate
cream. We can't even preserve our dietary individu-
ality . Truly said Feuerbach, " Der Mensch ist was
er isst." In Palestine we shall at least dare to be true
to our own gullets.' He laughed bitterly.

* You're not very romantic,' Mabel pouted. Indeed,
this Barstein, whose mere ideal could so interrupt the
rhapsodies due to her admissions of affection, was dis-
tinctly unsatisfactory. She touched his hand furtively
under the tablecloth.

1 After all, she is very young,' he thought, thrilling.
And youth was plastic — he, the sculptor, could surely
mould her. Besides, was she not Sir Asher's daughter ?
She must surely have inherited some of his love for
Palestine and his people. It was this Philistine set
that had spoiled her. Julius, too, that young Oxford
prig — he reflected illogically — had no doubt been a
baleful influence.

' Shall I give you some almond-pudding ?' he replied
tenderly.

Mabel laughed uneasily. ' I ask for romance, and

THE JEWISH TRINITY 107

you offer me almond-pudding. Oh, I should like to
go to a Jewish party where there wasn't almond-
pudding !'

' You shall — in Palestine,' he laughed back.

She pouted again. ' All roads lead to Palestine.'

' They do,' he said seriously. ' Without Palestine
our past is a shipwreck and our future a quick-
sand.'

She looked frightened again. ' But what should we
do there ? We can't pray all day long.'

1 Of course not,' he said eagerly. ' There's the new
generation to train for its glorious future. I shall teach
in the Arts and Crafts School. Bezalel, it's called ;
isn't that a beautiful name ? It's from Bezalel, the
first man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine
wisdom and understanding in all manner of workman-
ship.'

She shook her head. ' You'll be excommunicated.
The Palestine Rabbis always excommunicate every-
thing and everybody. '

He laughed. ' What do you know about Palestine ?'

* More than you think. Father gets endless letters
from there with pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-
wood boxes and paper-knives — a perennial shower.
The letters are generally in the most killing English.
And he won't let me laugh at them because he has a
vague feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar
are holy.'

Barstein laughed again. ' We'll send all the Rabbis
to Jericho.'

She smiled, but retorted : ' That's where they'll send
you, you maker of graven images. Why, your very
profession is forbidden.'

io8 GHETTO COMEDIES

' I'll corner 'em with this very Bezalel text. The
cutting of stones is just one of the arts which God says
He had inspired Bezalel with. Besides, you forget my
statue at the Bale Congress.'

.' Bale isn't Palestine. There's nothing but super-
stition and squalor, and I'm sorry to say father's
always bolstering it all up with his cheques.'

' Bravo, Sir Asher ! Unconsciously he has been
bolstering up the eventual Renaissance. Your father
and his kind have kept the seed alive ; we shall bring it
to blossom.'

His prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of appre-
hension over her marmoreal brow. But her face
lightened with a sudden thought. ' Well, perhaps,
after all, we shan't need to elope.'

' 1 never thought for a moment we should,' he
answered as cheerfully. ' But, all the same, we can
spend our honeymoon in Palestine.'

'Oh, I don't mind that,' said Mabel. 'Lots of
Christians do that. There was a Cook's party went out
from Middleton for last Easter.'

The lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in
the Palestinian honeymoon to analyse the terms in
which it was given. He looked into her eyes, and
saw there the Shechinah — the Divine glory that once
rested on Zion.

It was in this happier mood that Barstein ran down
to Middleton to plead his suit verbally with Sir Asher
Aaronsberg. Mabel had feared to commit their fates

THE JEWISH TRINITY

109

to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. A
plump negative would be so difficult to fight against.
A personal interview permitted one to sound the
ground, to break the thing delicately, to reason, to
explain, to charm away objections. It was clearly the
man's duty to face the music.

Not that Barstein expected anything but the music
of the Wedding March. He was glad that his original
contempt for Sir Asher had been exchanged for sincere
respect, and that the bluff Briton was a mere veneer.
It was to the Palestinian patriarch that he would pour
out his hopes and his dreams.

Alas ! he found only the bluff Briton, and a Briton
no longer genially, but bluntly, bluff.

' It is perfectly impossible.'

Barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment.
Was he not pious enough, or not rich enough, too
artistic or too low-born ? Or did Sir Asher consider
his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious?
Let Sir Asher say.

But Sir Asher would not say. ' I am not bound to
give my reasons. We are all proud of your work — it
confers honour on our community. The Mayor
alluded to it only yesterday.' He spoke in his best
platform manner. ' But to receive you into my family
— that is another matter.'

And all the talk advanced things no further.

1 It would be an entirely unsuitable match.' Sir
Asher caressed his long beard with an air of finality.

WTith a lover's impatience, Barstein had made the
mistake of seeking Sir Asher in his counting-house,
where the municipal magnate sat among his solidities.
The mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers,

i io GHETTO COMEDIES

the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through
whom Barstein had had to penetrate, the factory build-
ings stretching around, with their sense of throbbing
machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the burly
Briton a background against which visions and emo-
tions seemed as unreal as ghosts under gaslight. The
artist felt all this solid life closing round him like the
walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out his con-
fidence, his aspirations, his very life.

' Then you prefer to break your daughter's heart !'
he cried desperately.

' Break my daughter's heart !' echoed Sir Asher
in amaze. It was apparently a new aspect to
him.

4 You don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully ?'
Barstein went on, perceiving his advantage.

' Break her heart !' repeated Sir Asher, startled out
of his discreet reticence. ' I'd sooner break her heart
than see her married to a Zionist !'

This time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp.

' To a what ?' he cried.

* To a Zionist. You don't mean to deny you're a
Zionist ?' said Sir Asher sternly.

Barstein gazed at him in silence.

1 Come, come,' said Sir Asher. ' You don't suppose
I don't read the Jewish papers ? I know all about
your goings-on.'

The artist found his tongue. ' But — but,' he stam-
mered, ' you yearn for Zion too.'

' Naturally. But I don't presume to force the hand
of Providence.'

' How can any of us force Providence to do anything
it doesn't want to ? Surely it is through human

THE JEWISH TRINITY in

agency that Providence always works. God helps
those who help themselves.'

' Spare me your blasphemies. Perhaps you think
you are the Messiah.'

' I can be an atom of Him. The whole Jewish people
is its own Messiah — God working through it.'

' Take care, young man ; you'll be talking Trinity
next. And with these heathen notions you expect to
marry my daughter ! You must excuse me if I wish
to hear no further.' His hand began to wander
towards the row of electric bells on his desk.

6 Then how do you suppose we shall ever get to Pales-
tine ?' inquired the irritated artist.

Sir Asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. c In God's
good time,' he said.

' And when will that be ?'

' When we are either too good or too bad for our
present sphere. To-day we are too neutral. Besides,
there will be signs enough.'

4 What signs ?'

' Read your Bible. Mount Zion will be split by an
earthquake, as the prophet '

Barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture.
' But why can't we go to Jerusalem and wait for the
earthquake there ?' he asked.

' Because we have a mission to the nations. We must
live dispersed. We have to preach the unity of God.'

' I have never heard you preach it. You lowered
your voice when you denounced the Trinity to me, lest
the Christians should hear.'

4 We have to preach silently, by our example.
Merely by keeping our own religion we convert the
world.'

H2 GHETTO COMEDIES

4 But who keeps it ? Dispersion among Sunday-
keeping "peoples makes our very Sabbath an economic
impossibility.'

1 1 have not found it so,' said Sir Asher crushingly.
* Indeed, the growth of the Saturday half-holiday since
my young days is a remarkable instance of Judaizing.'

' So we have to remain dispersed to promote the
week-end holiday ?'

' To teach international truth,' Sir Asher corrected
sharply ; ' not narrow tribalism.'

' But we don't remain dispersed. Five millions are
herded in the Russian Pale to begin with.'

' The Providence of God has long been scattering
them to New York.'

* Yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. A
pretty scattering !'

Sir Asher flushed angrily. ' But they go to the
Argentine too. I heard of a colony even in Paraguay.'

' Where they are preaching the Unity to the Indians.'

' I do not discuss religion with a mocker. We are
in exile by God's decree — we must suffer.'

' Suffer !' The artist's glance wandered cynically
round the snug solidities of Sir Asher's exile, but he
forbore to be personal. ' Then if we must suffer, why
did you subscribe so much to the fund for the Russian
Jews ?'

Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein's acquaintance
with his generosity. ' That I might suffer with them,'
he replied, with a touch of humour.

1 Then you are a Jewish patriot,' retorted Barstein.

The bluff British face grew clouded again.

' Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots.
You talk treason to your country, young man.'

THE JEWISH TRINITY 113

* Treason — I !' The young man laughed bitterly.

' It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights
we have so painfully won in the West.'

1 Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,'
Barstein began.

' I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a
corps of volunteers for the Transvaal.'

' I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion —
that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.'

' Zion's soil is holy ; we want no volunteers there :
we want saints and teachers. And what would your
volunteers do in Zion ? Fight the Sultan with his
million soldiers ? They couldn't even live in Palestine
as men of peace. There is neither coal nor iron —
hence no manufactures. Agriculture ? It's largely
stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too hot for
Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've
no right to play recklessly with human lives. Besides,
even if Palestine were as fertile as England, Jews could
never live off one another. And think how they'd
quarrel !'

Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array
of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers.

' We can live off one another as easily as any other
people. As for quarrelling, weren't you in Parlia-
ment ? Party government makes quarrel the very
basis of the Constitution.'

Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying
down the law had ill prepared him for repartee.

' A pretty mess we should make of Government !'
he sneered.

' Why ? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet
in the world.'

8

u4 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Yes — we're all right as long as we're under other.
Sir Asher was recovering his serenity.

1 All right so long as we're under others !' gasped
the artist. ' Do you realize what you're saying, Sir
Asher ? The Boers against whom you equipped volun-
teers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under
others ! And we — the thought of Jewish autonomy
makes us foam at the mouth. The idea of indepen-
dence makes us turn in the graves we call our father-
lands.'

Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian
wave of the hand. * This is all a waste of breath.
Fortunately the acquisition of Palestine is impossible.'

' Then why do you pray for it — " speedily and in
our days " ?'

Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner.

6 That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein
drily.

' I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely.
' It is a Divine event I pray for — not the creation of a
Ghetto.'

' A Ghetto !' Barstein groaned in sheer hopeless-
ness. ' Yes, you're an anti-Semite too — like your
daughter, like your son, like all of us. We're all anti-
Semites.'

' I an anti-Semite ! Ho ! ho ! ho !' Sir Asher's
anger broke down in sheer amusement. ' I have made
every allowance for your excitement,' he said, recover-
ing his magisterial note. ' I was once in love myself.
But when it comes to calling me an anti-Semite, it is
obvious you are not in a fit state to continue this inter-
view. Indeed, I no longer wonder that you think
yourself the Messiah.'

THE JEWISH TRINITY 115

' Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah
a man ; somebody some day will have to win your
belief. But what I said was that God acts through
man.'

' Ah yes,' said Sir Asher good-humouredly. ' Three-
in-one and one-in-three.'

' And why not ?' said Barstein with a flash of angry
intuition. ' Aren't you a trinity yourself ?'

' Me ?' Sir Asher was now quite sure of the sculp-
tor's derangement.

' Yes — the Briton, the Jew, and the anti-Semite —
three-in-one and one-in-three.'

Sir Asher touched one of the electric bells with a
jerk. He was quite alarmed.

Barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal.
Never would he marry into these triune tribes. ' And
it's the same in every land where we're emancipated,
as it is called,' he went on furiously. ' The Jew's a
patriot everywhere, and a Jew everywhere and an
anti-Semite everywhere. Passionate Hungarians, and
true-born Italians, eagle-waving Americans, and loyal
Frenchmen, imperial Germans, and double Dutchmen,
we are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we
illustrate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony !
Three-in-one and one-in-three.' He laughed ; to Sir
Asher his laugh sounded maniacal. The old gentle-
man was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.

Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. ' Neither
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance,'
he ended grimly.

8—2

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN
SUDMINSTER

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN
SUDMINSTER

THERE was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters
which washed its leading Jews their living, but in the
breasts of these same marine storekeepers. For a
competitor had appeared in their hive of industry — an
alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at
Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not
only with capital and enterprise — the showy plate-glass
front of his shop revealed an enticing miscellany — but
with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not close on
Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morning as usual.
The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the
first Friday night, but by the Sabbath morning the
synagogue hummed with it. It set a clammy horror
in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their
prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades,
brought a tremor of insecurity into the very founda-
tions of their universe. For nearly three generations a
congregation had been established in Sudminster —
like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly
country — struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy
Day despite the supplementary burden of Sunday
closing, and the God of their fathers had not left un-

119

120 GHETTO COMEDIES

performed His part of the contract. For ' the harvests '
of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the
former rain ' of their unchanging supplication were mere
dried metaphors to a people divorced from Palestine
and the soil for eighteen centuries, the wine and the
oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor
were few and well provided for ; even the mortgage on
the synagogue was paid off. And now this Epicurean
was come to trouble the snug security, to break the
long chain of Sabbath observance which stretched from
Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers,
especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window
on their return from synagogue on Friday evening,
were literally surprised that the earth had not opened
beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah.

'Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath
was stoned to death,' whispered the squat Solomon
Barzinsky to the lanky Ephraim Mendel, marine-
dealers both.

' Alas ! that would not be permitted in this heathen
country,' sighed Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying-
shawl more over his left shoulder. ' But at least his
windows should be stoned.'

Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining
of the shattering of the shameless plate-glass. ' Yes,
and that wax-dummy of a sailor should be hung as an
atonement for his — Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
Hosts ; the whole earth is full of His glory.' The last
phrase Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in anti-
phonal response to the cantor, and he rose three times
on his toes, bowing his head piously. ' No wonder
he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he con-
cluded bitterly.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 121

' He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old
clo,' complained Lazarus Levy, who had taken over
S. Cohn's business, together with his daughter Deborah,
4 and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more
than the price we ask for 'em as new.'

Talk of the devil ! At this point Simeon Samuels

stalked into the synagogue, late but serene.

Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agita-
tion could not have been greater. The first appear-
ance in synagogue of a new settler was an event in itself ;
but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all was
startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the
obsequious and unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed
already to have engaged — that high-priced seat facing
the presidential pew that had remained vacant since
the death of Tevele the pawnbroker — Simeon Samuels
wrapped himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and
became absorbed in the service. His glossy high hat
bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long black
beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was
a rebuke to his gossiping neighbours.

A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue.
Had he been the victim of a jealous libel ? Even those
whose own eyes had seen him behind his counter when
he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at
his supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of
some hallucination.

When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the
new-comer was summoned canorously to the reading
of the Law — ' Shall stand Simeon, the son of Nehe-
miah ' — and he arose and solemnly mounted the central
platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and
osculations and benedictions seemed a withering reply

122 GHETTO COMEDIES

to the libel. When he descended, and the P amass
proffered his presidential hand in pious congratulation
upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found
themselves upon his line of return shot forth their
arms with remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon
Samuels switched on to the brotherhood of Sud-
minsterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting co-reli-
gionists passed his shop on their homeward walk — and
many a pair of legs went considerably out of its way
to do so — their eyes became again saucers of horror
and amaze. The broad plate-glass glittered nakedly,
unveiled by a single shutter ; the waxen dummy of
the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches ; the gold
lace, ticketed with layers of erased figures, boasted
brazenly of its cheapness ; the procession of customers
came and went, and the pavement, splashed with sun-
shine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acqui-
escent.

II

On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinsky and
Ephraim Mendel in pious black velvet caps, and their
stout spouses in gold chains and diamond earrings,
found themselves playing solo whist in the P amass' s
parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon
the game. The P amass, though at heart as outraged
as they by the new departure, felt it always incumbent
upon him to display his presidential impartiality and
his dry humour. His authority, mainly based on
his being the only retired shopkeeper in the com-
munity, was greatly strengthened by his slow manner

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 123

of taking snuff at a crisis. * My dear Mendel,' observed
the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a blue
handkerchief, ' Simeon Samuels has already paid his
annual subscription — and you haven't !'

' My money is good,' Mendel replied, reddening.

4 No wonder he can pay so quickly !' said Solomon
Barzinsky, shuffling the cards savagely.

* How he makes his money is not the question,' said
the P amass weightily. ' He has paid it, and therefore
if I were to expel him, as you suggest, he might go to
Law.'

* Law !' retorted Solomon. c Can't we prove he has
broken the Law of Moses ?'

' And suppose ?' said the P amass, picking up his
cards placidly. c Do we want to wash our dirty
Talysim (praying-shawls) in public ?'

' He is right, Solomon,' said Mrs. Barzinsky.
' We should become a laughing - stock among the
heathen.'

' I don't believe he'd drag us to the Christian courts,'
the little man persisted. ' I pass.'

The rubber continued cheerlessly. c A man who
keeps his shop open on Sabbath is capable of anything,'
said the lanky Mendel, gloomily sweeping in his win-
nings.

The Parnass took snuff judicially. ' Besides, he
may have a Christian partner who keeps all the Satur-
day profits,' he suggested.

' That would be just as forbidden,' said Barzinsky,
as he dealt the cards.

* But your cousin David,' his wife reminded him,
' sells his groceries to a Christian at Passover.'

c That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to

124 GHETTO COMEDIES

destroy hundreds of pounds of leaven. But Sabbath
partnerships are not permitted.'

' Perhaps the question has never been raised,' said
the P amass.

1 1 am enough of a Lamdan (pundit) to answer it,'
retorted Barzinsky.

' 1 prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the P amass.

Barzinsky threw down his cards. 'You can go to
the devil !' he cried.

' For shame, Solomon !' said his wife. ' Don't dis-
turb the game.'

' To Gehenna with the game ! The shame is on a
P amass to talk like an Epikouros (Epicurean).'

The Pamass blew his nose elaborately. ' It stands
in the Talmud : " For vain swearing noxious beasts
came into the world." And if — — '

' It stands in the Psalmist,' Barzinsky interrupted :
c " The Law of Thy mouth is better to me than
thousands of gold and silver." '

' It stands in the Perek,' the Pamass rejoined se-
verely, ' that the wise man does not break in upon the
speech of his fellow.'

' It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,' Barzinsky
shrieked, ' that for the sanctification of the Sab-
bath '

' It stands in the Talmud,' interposed Mendel, with
unwonted animation in his long figure, ' that one must
not even offer a nut to allure customers. From light
to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that '

A still small voice broke in upon the storm. ' But
Simeon Samuels hasn't a Christian partner,' said
Mrs. Mendel.

There was an embarrassed pause.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 125

' He has only his wife to help him,' she went on.
' I know, because I went to the shop Friday morning
on pretence of asking for a cuckoo-clock.'

' But a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the
Parnass's wife timidly. It wras her first contribution to
the conversation, for she was overpowered by her
husband's greatness.

* Don't be silly, Hannah !' said the Parnass. 'That
was just why Mrs. Mendel asked for it.'

' Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have
one,' Mrs. Mendel confessed ; ' and I couldn't get out
of buying it.'

There was a general laugh.

' Cut-throat competition, I call it,' snarled Solomon
Barzinsky, recovering from his merriment.

' But you don't sell clocks,' said the Parnass.

4 That's just it ; he gets hold of our customers on pre-
tence of selling them something else. The Talmudical
prohibition cited by Mendel applies to that too.'

' So I wasn't so silly,' put in the Parnass' s wife,
feeling vaguely vindicated.

4 Well, you saw his wife,' said the Parnass to Men-
del's wife, disregarding his own. ' More than I've
done, for she wasn't in synagogue. Perhaps she is
the Christian partner.' His suggestion brought a new
and holier horror over the card-table.

* No, no,' replied Mrs. Mendel reassuringly. * I
caught sight of her frying fish in the kitchen.'

This proof of her Jewishness passed unquestioned,
and the new-born horror subsided.

' But in spite of the fish,' said Mr. Mendel, ' she
served in the shop while he was at synagogue.'

* Yes,' hissed Barzinsky ; ' and in spite of the syna-

126 GHETTO COMEDIES

gogue he served in the shop. A greater mockery was
never known !'

' Not at all, not at all,' said the P amass judicially.
* If a man breaks one commandment, that's no reason
he should break two.'

' But he does break two,' Solomon thundered,
smiting the green cloth with his fist ; ' for he steals my
custom by opening when I'm closed.'

' Take care — you will break my plates,' said the
Parnass. ' Take a sandwich.'

' Thank you — you've taken away my appetite.'

* I'm sorry — but the sandwiches would have done
the same. I really can't expel a respectable seat-
holder before I know that he is truly a sinner in Israel.
As it is written, " Thou shalt inquire and make search
and ask diligently." He may have only opened this
once by way of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite.'

' At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-
sandwich — just for once,' said Solomon scathingly.

1 Don't say / called you a dog,' the Parnass laughed.

' A mezaire !' announced the hostess hurriedly.
' After all, it's the Almighty's business, not ours.'

' No, it's our business,' Solomon insisted.

* Yes,' agreed the Parnass drily ; ' it is your business.'

Ill

The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though
the plate-glass window was unshaken by the gusts.
It maintained its flaunting seductiveness, assisted,
people observed, by Simeon Samuels' habit of loung-

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 127

ing at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating
spectator. And it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath
that succeeded.

The horror was tinged with consternation. The
strange apathy of the pavement and the sky, the re-
missness of the volcanic fires and the celestial thunder-
bolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the cosmos
an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had
the congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and
the consequences did not at all correspond with their
deep if undefined forebodings. It is true a horse and
carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window
down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the
oilskins fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop ; but
as the suffering was entirely limited to the nerves of
Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to the innocent nose
of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what was
expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the
spokesman of the general dissatisfaction, and his
remarks to the minister after the Sabbath service
almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had
connived at a breach of contract.

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. ' The
Lord is merciful and long-suffering, and will not at
once awaken all His wrath.'

* But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny !'
quoth Solomon, unappeased. ' Saturday is pay-day,
and the heathen haven't patience to wait till the three
stars are out and our shops can open. It is your duty,
Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.5

The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged,
and shabby, with a German diploma and accent and
a large family. It was the first time in his five years

128 GHETTO COMEDIES

of office that one of his congregants had suggested such
authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote,
he was treated as their servant, his duties rigidly pre-
scribed, his religious ideas curbed and corrected by
theirs. What wonder if he could not suddenly rise
to dictatorship ? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a
congregation in herself. But as the week went by he
found Barzinsky was not the only man to egg him
on to prophetic denunciation ; the congregation at
large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and
if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the
pawnbrokers and the linen-drapers were none the less
outraged.

' It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unani-
mously, c and such a bad example to our poor !'

1 He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would
protest. ' You had much better talk to him your-
self.'

' Me !' the button-holer would ejaculate. ' I would
not lower myself. He'd think I was jealous of his
success.'

Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person
to tackle. Bland and aloof, he pursued his own affairs,
meeting the congregation only in synagogue, and then
more bland and aloof than ever.

At last the Minister received a presidential command
to preach upon the subject forthwith.

* But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded.
4 We are still in Genesis.'

' Bah !' replied the P amass impatiently, £ any text
can be twisted to point any moral. You must preach
next Sabbath.'

' But we are reading the Sedrah (weekly portion)

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 129

about Joseph. How are you going to work Sabbath-
keeping into that ?'

1 It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the-
earth. But what's the use of a preacher if he can't
make any text mean something else ?'

' Well, of course, every text usually does,' said the
preacher defensively. * There is the hidden meaning
and the plain meaning. But Joseph is merely his-
torical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned
in Genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained
yet.'

' And what about Potiphar's wife ?'

4 That's the Seventh Commandment, not the
Fourth.'

' Thank you for the information. Do you mean to
say you can't jump from one Commandment to
another ?'

' Oh, well ' The minister meditated.

IV

' And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured.
And it came to pass that his master's wife cast her
eyes upon Joseph. . . .'

The congregation looked startled. Really this was
not a text which they wished their pastor to enlarge
upon. There were things in the Bible that should be
left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially when
one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their
eyes lifted towards the bonnets behind the balcony-
grating.

9

130 GHETTO COMEDIES

' But Joseph refused.'

Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawn-
broker blew his nose like a protesting trumpet. The
congregation's eyes returned from the balcony and
converged upon the Parnass. He was taking snuff
as usual.

' My brethren,' began the preacher impressively,
* temptation comes to us all '

A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from
many nostrils. A blush overspread many cheeks.

' But not always in the shape it came to Joseph.
In this congregation, where, by the blessing of the
Almighty, we are free from almost every form of
wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has
power to touch us — the temptation of unholy profit,
the seduction of Sabbath-breaking.'

A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony,
and Simeon Samuels became now the focus of every
eye. His face was turned towards the preacher,
wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential
dignity.

' Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of
us : " And Joseph refused "!'

A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah,
now the cosmos was righting itself ; Heaven was speak-
ing through the mouth of its minister.

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth
which radiated back to him. His stature grew, his
eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As he ended,
the congregation burst into a heartfelt ' Yosher Koach '
(' May thy strength increase !').

The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked
back solemnly to his seat. As he passed Simeon

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 131

Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his hand and
grasped the man of God's, and his neighbours testified
that there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his
goodly features.

V

The Sabbath came round again, but, alas ! it brought
no balm to the congregation ; rather, was it a day of
unrest. The plate-glass window still flashed in iniqui-
tous effrontery ; still the ungodly proprietor allured the
stream of custom.

' He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon
Barzinsky exclaimed to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they
passed the blasphemous window on their way from
the Friday-evening service.

4 Why, what would be the good of keeping
open if you didn't take money ?' naively inquired
Peleg.

4 Behemah (animal) !' replied Solomon impatiently.
' Don't you know it's forbidden to touch money on the
Sabbath ?'

' Of course, I know that. But if you open your
shop !'

4 All the same, you might compromise. You might
give the customers the things they need, as it is
written, " Open thy hand to the needy !" but they
could pay on Saturday night.'

' And if they didn't pay ? If they drank their
money away ?' said the pawnbroker.

' True, but why couldn't they pay in advance ?'

' How in advance ?'

9—2

1 32 GHETTO COMEDIES

6 They could deposit a sum of money with you, and
draw against it.'

' Not with me !' Peleg made a grimace. ' All very
well for your line, bat in mine I should have to deposit
a sum of money with them. I don't suppose they'd
bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till
Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could
one remember ? One would have to profane the
Sabbath by writing !'

1 Write ! Heaven forbid !' ejaculated Solomon Bar-
zinsky. ' But you could have a system of marking
the amounts against their names in your register. A
pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp
stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways.
One could always give one's self a device,' he concluded
in Yiddish.

' But it is written in Job, " He disappointeth the
devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot per-
form their enterprise." Have a little of Job's patience,
and trust the Lord to confound the sinner. We shall
yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'

' I hope not, the rogue ! I'd like to see him
ruined !'

' That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'

c The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon.
c Ah, our Parnass has caught us up. Good Shabbos
(Sabbath), Parnass. This is a fine scandal for a God-
fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'

' Is he open again ?' gasped the Parnass , hurled
from his judicial calm.

' Is my eye open ?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky.
' A fat lot of good your preacher does.'

' It was you who would elect him instead of

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 133

Rochinsky,' the P amass reminded him. Barzinsky
was taken aback.

' Well, we don't want foreigners, do we ?' he murmured.

1 And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,'
chuckled the Parnass, in whose breast the defeat of
his candidate had never ceased to rankle.

* Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Bar-
zinsky. He seriously considered himself a Briton,
regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective.
' We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he
went on. ' Let us wait a moment ; he'll come along,
and we'll give him a piece of our minds.'

' I can't keep my family waiting for Kiddush ' (home
service), said Peleg.

' Come home, father ; I'm hungry,' put in Peleg
junior, who with various Barzinsky boys had been
trailing in the parental wake.

' Silence, impudent face !' snapped Barzinsky. ' If

I was your father Ah, here comes the minister.

Good Shabbos (Sabbath), Mr. Gabriel. I congratulate
you on the effect of your last sermon.'

An exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. ' Is
he shut ?'

' Is your mouth shut ?' Solomon replied scathingly.
' I doubt if he'll even come to Shool (synagogue)
to-morrow.'

The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp,
but no words came from it.

* I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language,
Mr. Gabriel,' said the Parnass soothingly.

' But if he is not there to hear it.'
' Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right
enough. Just give it to him hot !'

I34 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who
had lingered, though his son had not. ' You might
have meant any of us.'

' But we must not shame our brother in public,'
urged the minister. ' It is written in the Talmud that
he who does so has no share in the world to come.'

'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. ' A
stranger would imagine we were a congregation of
Sabbath-breakers.'

4 But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.

' There was Simeon Samuels,' the P amass reminded
him. ' Perhaps your sermon against Sabbath-breaking
made him fancy he was just one of a crowd, and that
you have therefore only hardened him '

' But you told me to preach against Sabbath-
breaking,' said the poor minister.

' Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the Par-
nass.

1 You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky ; ' you
didn't even make it clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'

' I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-
favoured,' retorted the goaded minister.

The Parnass took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like
a guffaw.

'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try
again to-morrow.'

' I didn't undertake to preach every Saturday/
grumbled the minister, growing bolder.

' As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't
shut,' said Solomon angrily.

' It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.

' And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's
Sedrah' (portion), Barzinsky remembered exultantly.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 135

' " And took from them Simeon, and bound him before
their eyes." There's your very text. You'll pick out
Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the
Sabbath.'

8 Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound
him,' added the P amass. ' You have a choice — your-
self or Satan.'

1 Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said
the minister sullenly. ' I still can't see what that text
has to do with Sabbath-breaking.'

' It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as
Potiphar's wife,' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.

VI

' " And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have
ye bereaved. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and
ye will take Benjamin." '

As the word ' Simeon ' came hissing from the
preacher's lips, a veritable thrill passed through the
synagogue. Even Simeon Samuels seemed shaken,
for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous
movement.

' My brethren, these words of Israel, the great fore-
father of our tribes, are still ringing in our ears. To-day
more than ever is Israel crying. Joseph is not — our
Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not — our Holy Temple
is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us — one
blessing with which the almighty father has blessed
us — our Holy Sabbath. And ye will take Benjamin.'
The pathos of his accents melted every heart. Tears

I36 GHETTO COMEDIES

rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels
was seen to blow his nose softly.

Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel
proceeded to draw a tender picture of the love between
Israel and his Benjamin, Sabbath — the one consola-
tion of his exile, and he skilfully worked in the sub-
sequent verse : c If mischief befall him by the way on
which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs
with sorrow to the grave.' Yes, it would be the de-
struction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath decayed.
Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger
Ben j amin . ' From Reuben and Simeon down to Gad and
Asher, his life shall be required at their hands.' Oh, it
was a red-hot-cannon-ball-nring sermon, and Solomon
Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and whisper-
ing to the Parnass : ' Wasn't I right in refusing to vote
for Rochinsky ?' This reminder of his candidate's
defeat was wormwood to the Parnass, spoiling all his
satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked the talker
with a noisy c Shaa ' (silence).

The congregation shrank delicately from looking at
the sinner ; it would be too painful to watch his
wriggles. His neighbours stared pointedly every other
way. Thus, the only record of his deportment under
fire came from Yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said
that he kept looking from face to face, as if to mark
the effect on the congregation, stroking his beard
placidly the while. But as to his behaviour after the
guns were still, there was no dubiety, for everybody
saw him approach the Parnass in the exodus from
synagogue, and many heard him say in hearty accents :
* I really must congratulate yon, Mr. President, on your
selection of your minister.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 137

VII

4 You touched his heart so,' shrieked Solomon Bar-
zinsky an hour later to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel,
* that he went straight from Shool (synagogue) to his
shop.' Solomon had rushed out the first thing after
breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to
call upon the unsuccessful minister.

4 That is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen.

4 Yes, it is — if you had only stuck to my text. But
no ! You must set yourself up over all our heads.'

4 You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.'

' Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him ?
The Holy Temple ! A fine thing, upon my soul !'

4 It was only an — an — analogy,' stammered the poor
minister.

1 An apology ! Oh, so you apologized to him, too !
Better and better.'

1 No, no, I mean a comparison.'

4 A comparison ! You never compared me to the Holy
Temple. And I'm Solomon — Solomon who built it.'

4 Solomon was wise,' murmured the minister.

4 Oh, and I'm silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I'd
remember my place and who I owed it to. But for
me, Rochinsky would have stood in your shoes '

4 Rochinsky is lucky.'

4 Oh, indeed ! So this is your gratitude. Very well.
Either Simeon Samuels shuts up shop or you do.
That's final. Don't forget you were only elected for
three years.' And the little man flung out.

The Parnass, meeting his minister later in the street,
took a similar view.

138 GHETTO COMEDIES

' You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said.
' The congregation is terribly wrought up. There may
even be a riot. If Simeon Samuels keeps open next
Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't go and break
his windows.'

' Then they will break the Sabbath.'
' Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'
4 They'll be too busy opening their own shops.'
' Don't argue. You must preach his shop shut.'
' Very well,' said the Reverend Gabriel sullenly.
' That's right. A man with a family must rise
to great occasions. Do you think I'd be where I am
now if I hadn't had the courage to buy a bankrupt
stock that I didn't see my way to paying for ? It's a
fight between you and Simeon Samuels.'

' May his name be blotted out !' impatiently cried
the minister in the Hebrew imprecation.

' No, no,' replied the Parnass, smiling. ' His name
must not be blotted out — it must be mentioned, and—
unmistakably.'

' It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is
equivalent to murder,' the minister persisted.

' Yet it is written in Leviticus : " Thou shalt in any
wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon
him." And the Parnass took a triumphant pinch.

VIII

' Simeon and Levi are brethren . . . into their
assembly be not thou united : in their self-will they
digged down a wall.'

The Parnass applauded mentally. The text, from

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 139

Jacob's blessing, was ingeniously expurgated to meet
the case. The wall, he perceived at once, was the
Sabbath — the Jews' one last protection against the
outer world, the one last dyke against the waves of
heathendom. Nor did his complacency diminish when
his intuition proved correct, and the preacher thundered
against the self-will — ay, and the self-seeking — that
undermined Israel's last fortification. What did they
seek under the wall ? Did they think their delving
spades would come upon a hidden store of gold, upon
an ancient treasure-chest ? Nay, it was a coffin they
would strike — a coffin of dead bones and living serpents.

A cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue ; a
little shriek came from the gallery.

' 1 don't think I ever enjoyed a sermon so much,'
said the pawnbroker to the P amass.

' Oh, he's improving,' said the Parnass, still swollen
with satisfaction.

But as that worthy elder emerged from the syna-
gogue, placidly snuffing himself, he found an excited
gentleman waiting him in the lobby. It was Lazarus
Levy, whom his wife Deborah, daughter of S. Cohn
(now of Highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify.

' Either that Reverend Gabriel goes, Mr. Parnass, or
I resign my membership.'

' What is it, Mr. Levy — what is the matter ?'

6 Everybody knows I've been a good Jew all my life,
and though Saturday is so good for the clothing busi-
ness, I've striven with all my might to do my duty by
the Almighty.'

' Of course, of course ; everybody knows that.'

' And yet to-day I'm pointed out as a sinner in Israel ;
I'm coupled with that Simeon Samuels. Simeon and

140 GHETTO COMEDIES

Levy are brothers in their iniquity — with their assembly
be not united. A pretty libel, indeed !'

The Parnass's complacency collapsed like an air-ball
at a pin-prick. ' Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he
couldn't mean you.'

' 1 don't know so much. There are always people
ready to think one has just been discovered keeping a
back-door open or something. I shouldn't be at all
surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in
London — you know how pious old Cohn is ! As for
Simeon, he kept looking at me as if I was his long- lost
brother. Ah, there comes our precious minister. . . .
Look here, Mr. Gabriel, I'll have the law on you.
Simeon's no brother of mine '

The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other
swing-door cut the speaker short. ' Good Shabbos,9
said the shameless sinner. ' Ah, Mr. Gabriel, that was
a very fine sermon.' He stroked his beard. ' I quite
agree with you. To dig down a public wall is indefen-
sible. Nobody has the right to make more than a
private hole in it, where it blocks out his own prospect.
So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again.
Good Shabbos /' And, waving his hand pleasantly,
he left them to their consternation.

IX

' What an impudent face !' said the Gabbai (trea-
surer), who witnessed the episode.

* And our minister says I'm that man's brother !
exclaimed Mr. Levy.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 141

' Hush ! Enough !' said the P amass, with a tactful
inspiration. * You shall read the Haphtorah (prophetic
section) next Shabbos.9

4 And Mr. Gabriel must explain he didn't mean me,'
he stipulated, mollified by the magnificent Mitzvah
(pious privilege).

' You always try to drive a hard bargain,' grumbled
the Parnass. l That's a question for Mr. Gabriel.'

The reverend gentleman had a happy thought.
4 Wait till we come to the text : " Wherefore Levi hath
no part nor inheritance with his brethren."

'You're a gentleman, Mr. Gabriel,' ejaculated
S. Cohn's son-in-law, clutching at his hand.

' And if he doesn't close to-day after your splendid
sermon,' added the Gabbai, c you must call and talk
to him face to face.'

The minister made a wry face. ' But that's not in
my duties.'

* Pardon me, Mr. Gabriel,' put in the Parnass,

* you have to call upon the afflicted and the bereaved.
And Simeon Samuels is spiritually afflicted, and has
lost his Sabbath.'

* But he doesn't want comforting.'

*Well, Solomon Barzinsky does,' said the Parnass.

* Go to him instead, then, for I'm past soothing him.
Choose !'

* I'll go to Simeon Samuels,' said the preacher
gloomily.

I42 GHETTO COMEDIES

X

' It is most kind of you to call,' said Simeon Samuels
as he wheeled the parlour armchair towards his reverend
guest. ' My wife will be so sorry to have missed you.
We have both been looking forward so much to your
visit.'

' You knew I was coming ?' said the minister, a whit
startled.

' I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or
later.'

6 I'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister,
subsiding into the chair.

' Better late than never,' cried Simeon Samuels
heartily, as he produced a bottle from the sideboard.
' Do you take it with hot water ?'

' Thank you — not at all. I am only staying a
moment.'

' Ah !' He stroked his beard. ' You are busy ?'

' Terribly busy,' said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel.

' Even on Sunday ?'

' Rather ! It's my day for secretarial work, as
there's no school.'

' Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to
myself. But you have to work Saturday and Sunday
too. It's really too bad.'

' Eh,' said the minister blankly.

' Oh, of course I know you must work on the
Sabbath.'

4 / work on — on Shabbos /' The minister flushed
to the temples.

' Oh, I'm not blaming you. One must live. In an

I work on — on Shabbos \

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTEK 143

ideal world of course you'd preach and pray and sing
and recite the Law for nothing so that Heaven might
perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things are
you must take your wages.'

The minister had risen agitatedly. CI earn my
wages for the rest of my work — the Sabbath work I
throw in,' he said hotly.

4 Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy
of you. But far be it from me to judge a fellow-man.'
4 Far be it indeed !' The attempted turning of his
sabre-point gave him vigour for the lunge. * You —
you whose shop stands brazenly open every Saturday !'
' My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn't break the Fourth
Commandment . '
'What!'

' Would you have me break the Fourth Com-
mandment ?'

' I do not understand.'

' And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told.
Does not the Fourth Commandment run : " Six days
shalt thou labour and do all thy work " ? If I were
to close on Saturday I should only be working five
days a week, since in this heathen country Sunday
closing is compulsory.'

4 But you don't keep the other half of the Com-
mandment,' said the bewildered minister. ' " And
on the seventh is the Sabbath." '

' Yes, I do — after my six days the seventh is my
Sabbath. I only sinned once, if you will have it so,
the first time I shifted the Sabbath to Sunday, since
when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'

* But you did sin once !' said the minister, catching
at that straw.

144 GHETTO COMEDIES

* Granted, but as to get right again would now make
a second sin, it seems more pious to let things be. Not
that I really admit the first sin, for let me ask you,
sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the Commandment —
to work six days and keep a day of rest — merely chang-
ing the day once in one's whole lifetime — or to work
five days and keep two days of rest ?'

The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this
novel defence. He had come heavily armed against
all the usual arguments as to the necessity of earning
one's bread. He was prepared to prove that even
from a material point of view you really gained more
in the long run, as it is written in the Conclusion-of-
Sabbath Service : ' Blessed shalt thou be in the city,
and blessed shalt thou be in the field.'

Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.

' My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put
all the stress upon the resting half of the Command-
ment, forgetting the working half of it. I do my
best to meet their views — as you say, one should not
dig down a wall — by attending their Sabbath service
on a day most inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice
is too great to achieve prayerful communion with one's
brethren.'

' But if your views were to prevail there would be
an end of Judaism !' the minister burst forth.

' Then Heaven forbid they should prevail !' said
Simeon Samuels fervently. ' It is your duty to put
the opposition doctrine as strongly as possible from
the pulpit.' Then, as the minister rose in angry
obfuscation, ' You are sure you won't have some
whisky ?' he added.

' No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 145

if you show yourself next Sabbath I will preach at
you again.'

1 So that is your idea of religion — to drive me from
the synagogue. You are more likely to drive away
the rest of the congregation, sick of always hearing
the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy
your eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction
of Judaism.'

' Me !' The minister became ungrammatical in his
indignation.

4 Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac.
People who find that your Sabbath wall shuts them
out of all public life and all professions, just go outside
it altogether, and think themselves outside the gates
of Judaism. If my father — peace be upon him —
hadn't had your narrow notions, I should have gone
to the Bar instead of being condemned to shop-
keeping.'

' You are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted
the minister.

Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. ' Thank you.
And I congratulate your client.'

' You are an Epikouros (Epicurean), and I am
wasting my time.'

* And mine too.'

The minister strode into the shop. At the street-
door he turned.

' Then you persist in setting a bad example ?'

' A bad example ! To whom ? To your godly
congregation ? Considering every other shop in the
town is open on Shabbos, one more or less can't upset
them.'

4 When it is the only Jewish shop ! Are you aware,

10

146 GHETTO COMEDIES

sir, that every other Jew in Sudminster closes rigorously
on the Sabbath ?'

' I ascertained that before I settled here,' said
Simeon Samuels quietly.

XI

The report of the pastor's collapse produced an
emergency meeting of the leading sheep. The mid-day
dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest. A babble of
suggestions filled the Parnass's parlour. Solomon
Barzinsky kept sternly repeating his Delenda est
Carthago : ' He must be expelled the congregation.'

' He should be expelled from the town altogether,'
said Mendel. 4 As it is written : " And remove Satan
from before and behind us." '

4 Since when have we owned Sudminster ?' sneered
the Parnass. ' You might as well talk of expelling
the Mayor and the Corporation.'

' I didn't mean by Act of Parliament,' said Mendel.
' We could make his life a torture.'

* And meantime he makes yours a torture. No, no,
the only way is to appeal to his soul '

4 May it be an atonement for us all!' interrupted
Peleg the pawnbroker.

4 We must beg him not to destroy religion,' repeated
the P am ass.

4 1 thought Mr. Gabriel had done that,' said the
Gabbai.

4 He is only a minister. He has no worldly tact.'

' Then, why don't you go ?' said Solomon Barzinsky.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 14?

8 1 have too much worldly tact. The President's
visit might seem like an appeal to authority. It would
set up his bristles. Besides, there wouldn't be me left
to appeal to. The congregation must keep some trump
up its sleeve. No, a mere plain member must go, a
simple brother in Israel, to talk to him, heart to heart.
You, Barzinsky, are the very man.'

' No, no, I'm not such a simple brother as all that.
I'm in the same line, and he might take it for trade
jealousy.'

' Then Peleg must go.'

' No, no, I'm not worthy to be the Sheliach Tzibbur /'
(envoy of the congregation).

The Parnass reassured him as to his merits. ' The
congregation could not have a worthier envoy.'

' But I can't leave my business.'

' You, with your fine grown-up daughters !' cried
Barzinsky.

' Don't beshrew them — I will go at once.'

' And these gentlemen must await you here,' said
the President, tapping his snuffbox incongruously at
the ' here,' ' in order to continue the sitting if you
fail.'

* I can't wait more than a quarter of an hour,'
grumbled various voices in various keys.

Peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congre-
gational esteem. He returned without even his own.
Instead he carried a bulky barometer.

' You must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,'
he said. ' It will do to hang in the lobby.'

The Parnass was the only one left in command of
his breath.

c Buy a barometer !' he gasped.

10 — 2

148 GHETTO COMEDIES

'Well, it isn't any good to me,9 retorted Peleg
angrily.

' Then why did you buy it ?' cried the Gabbai.

' It was the cheapest article I could get off with.'

' But you didn't go to buy,' said the Parnass.

' I know that — but you come into the shop —
naturally he takes you for a customer — he looks so
dignified ; he strokes his beard — you can't look a
fool, you must '

'Be one,' snapped the Parnass. 'And then you
come to us to share the expenses !'

4 Well, what do I want with a barometer ?'

' It'll do to tell you there's a storm when the
chimney-pots are blowing down,' suggested the Parnass
crushingly.

' Put it in your window* — you'll make a profit out
of it,' said Mendel.

' Not while Simeon Samuels is selling them cheaper,
as with his Sabbath profits he can well afford to do !'

' Oh, he said he'd stick to his Sabbath profit, did
he ?' inquired the Parnass.

'We never touched on that,' said Peleg miserably.
' I couldn't manage to work the Sabbath into the
conversation.'

' This is terrible.' Barzinsky's fist smote the table.
' I'll go — let him suspect my motives or not. The
Almighty knows they are pure.'

' Bravo ! Well spoken !' There was a burst of
applause. Several marine-dealers shot out their hands
and grasped Barzinsky's in admiration.

' Do not await me, gentlemen,' he said importantly.
' Go in peace.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 149

XII

* Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels,' said Solomon Bar-
zinsky.

6 Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you ?'
4 You — you don't know me ? I am a fellow- Jew.'
' That's as plain as the nose on your face.'
' You don't remember me from Shool ? Mr. Bar-
zinsky ! I had the rolling-up of the Scroll the time
you had the elevation of it.'

1 Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely
notice people. But I am very glad to find you patron-
izing my humble establishment.'

' I don't want a barometer,' said Solomon hurriedly.
' That is fortunate, as I have just sold my last.
But in the way of waterproofs, we have a new pattern,
very seasonable.'

* No, no ; I didn't come for a waterproof.'
1 These oilskins '

' I didn't come to buy anything.'

' Ah, you wish to sell me something.'

' Not that either. The fact is, I've come to beg of
you, as one Jew to another '

' A Schnorrer /' interrupted Simeon Samuels. * Oh,
Lord,, I ought to have recognised you by that synagogue
beginning.'

'Me, a Schnorrer/' The little man swelled sky-
wards. ' Me, Solomon Barzinsky, whose shop stood in
Sudminster twenty years before you poked your nose
in '

' I beg your pardon. There ! you see I'm a beggar,
too.' And Simeon Samuels laughed mirthlessly. 'Well,

150 GHETTO COMEDIES

you've come to beg of me.' And his fingers caressed
his patriarchal beard.

' I don't come on my own account only,' Barzinsky
stammered.

' I understand. You want a contribution to the
Passover Cake Fund. My time is precious, so is yours.
What is the P amass giving ?'

'I'm not begging for money. I represent the con-
gregation.'

' Dear me, why didn't you come to the point quicker ?
The congregation wishes to beg my acceptance of
office. Well, it's very good of you all, especially as
I'm such a recent addition. But I really feel a diffi-
dence. You see, my views of the Sabbath clash with
those of the congregation.'

4 They do !' cried Barzinsky, leaping at his oppor-
tunity.

' Yes, I am for a much stricter observance than
appears general here. Scarcely one of you carries his
handkerchief tied round his loins like my poor old
father, peace be upon him ! You all carry the burden
of it impiously in a pocket.'

c I never noticed your handkerchief round your
waist !' cried the bewildered Barzinsky.

' Perhaps not ; I never had a cold ; it remained
furled.'

Simeon Samuels' superb insolence twitched Bar-
zinsky's mouth agape. ' But you keep your shop
open !' he cried at last.

'That would be still another point of clashing,'
admitted Simeon Samuels blandly. ' Altogether, you
will see the inadvisability of my accepting office.'

4 Office !' echoed Barzinsky, meeting the other's

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 151

ironic fence with crude thwacks. ' Do you think a
God-fearing congregation would offer office to a
Sabbath-breaker ?'

' Ah, so that was at the back of it. I suspected
something underhand in your offer. I was to be given
office, was I, on condition of closing my shop on
Saturday ? No, Mr. Barzinsky. Go back and tell
those who sent you that Simeon Samuels scorns
stipulations, and that when you offer to make him
Parnass unconditionally he may consider your offer,
but not till then. Good-bye. You must jog along
with your present apology for a Parnass.9

' You — you Elisha ben Abuyai !' And, consoled
only by the aptness of his reference to the atheist of
the Talmud, Barzinsky rushed off to tell the Parnass
how Simeon Samuels had insulted them both.

XIII

The Parnass, however, was not to be drawn yet.
He must keep himself in reserve, he still insisted. But
perhaps, he admitted, Simeon Samuels resented mere
private members or committeemen. Let the Gabbai

go-

Accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue
strode into the notorious shop on the Sabbath itself,
catching Simeon Samuels red-handed.

But nothing could be suaver than that gentleman's
* Good Shabbos. What can I do for you ?'

' You can shut up your shop,' said the Gabbai
brusquely.

152 GHETTO COMEDIES

6 And how shall I pay your bill, then ?'
' I'd rather give you a seat and all the honours for
nothing than see this desecration.'

' You must have a goodly surplus, then.'

' We have enough.'

'That's strange. You're the first Gabbai I ever
knew who was satisfied with his balance-sheet. Is it
your excellent management, I wonder, or have you
endowments ?'

1 That's not for me to say. I mean we have five or
six hundred pounds in legacies.'

' Indeed ! Soundly invested, I hope ?'

' First-class. English Railway Debentures.'

' I see. Trustee stock.' Simeon Samuels stroked
his beard. c And so your whole congregation works
on the Sabbath. A pretty confession !'

6 What do you mean ?'

' Runs railway trains, lights engine-fires, keeps
porters and signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits !'

1 Who does ?'

' You, sir, in particular, as the financial representa-
tive of the congregation. How can any Jew hold
industrial shares in a heathen country without being
a partner in a Sabbath business — ay, and opening on
the Day of Atonement itself ? And it is you who
have the audacity to complain of me ! I, at least, do
my own dirty work, not hide myself behind stocks
and shares. Good Shabbos to you, Mr. Gabbai, and
kindly mind your own business in future — your loco-
motives and your sidings and your stinking tunnels.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 153

XIV

The Parnass could no longer delay the diplomatic
encounter. 'Twas vain to accuse the others of tact-
lessness, and shirk the exhibition of his own tact.
He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing
the others that he was about to put it to a trial.

Hence he refrained from improving a synagogue
opportunity, but sneaked one week-day towards the
shop. He lingered without, waiting to be invited
within. Thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke
would be removed. His mission should pop up from
a casual conversation.

He peeped into the window, passed and repassed.
Simeon Samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the
purlieus of his web, issued from its centre, as the
Parnass turned his back on the shop and gazed
musingly at the sky.

' Looks threatening for rain, sir,' observed Simeon

Samuels, addressing the back. ' Our waterproofs

Bless my soul, but it surely isn't our Parnass /'

' Yes, I'm just strolling about. I seem to have
stumbled on your establishment.'
' Lucky for me.'

' And a pleasure for me. I never knew you had
such a nice display.'

' Won't you come inside, and see the stock ?'
' Thank you, I must really get back home. And
besides, as you say, it is threatening for rain.'

c I'll lend you a waterproof, or even sell you
one cheap. Come in, sir — come in. Pray honour
me.'

154 GHETTO COMEDIES

Congratulating himself on catching the spider, the
fly followed him within.

A quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz
about the stock. It seemed vastly difficult to veer
round to the Sabbath through the web of conversa-
tion the spider wove round him. Simeon Samuels'
conception of a marine-dealer's stock startled him by
its comprehensiveness, and when he was asked to
admire an Indian shawl, he couldn't help inquiring
what it was doing there.

' Well,' explained Simeon Samuels, c occasionally a
captain or first mate will come back to England, home,
and beauty, and will have neglected to buy foreign
presents for his womenkind. I then remind him of
the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their
menf oiks' travel.'

* Excellent. I won't tell your competitors.'

' Oh, those cattle !' Simeon snapped his fingers. ' If
they stole my idea, they'd not be able to carry it out.
It's not easy to cajole a captain.'

* No, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the
P amass.

1 1 also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on
Simeon. ' It's a thing women are especially fond of
having brought back to them from India. And yet
it's the last thing their menkind^hink of till I remind
them of it on their return.'

' / certainly brought back none,' said the Parnass,
smiling in spite of himself.

' You have been in India ?'

' I have,' replied the P amass, with a happy inspira-
tion, ' and I brought back to my wife something more
stimulating than chutney.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 155

' Indeed ?'

1 Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews,
who, surrounded by all those millions of Hindoos, still
keep their Sabbath.'

' Ah, poor niggers. Then you've been half round
the world.'

' All round the world, for I went there and back by
different routes. And it was most touching, wherever
I went, to find everywhere a colony of Jews, and
everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'

' But on different days, of course,' said Simeon
Samuels.

' Eh ? Not at all ! On the same day.'

' On the same day ! How could that be ? The day
changes with every move east or west. When it's day
here, it's night in Australia.'

Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.

* Don't you try to make black white !' he said angrily.

' It's you that are trying to make white black,'
retorted Simeon Samuels. ' Perhaps you don't know
that I hail from Australia, and that by working on
Saturday I escape profaning my native Australian
Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the
world, and have either lost or gained a day, according
as you travelled east or west, are desecrating your
original Sabbath either by working on Friday or
smoking on Sunday.'

The Parnass felt his head going round — he didn't
know whether east or west. He tried to clear it by a
pinch of snuff, which he in vain strove to make judicial.

' Oh, and so, and so — atchew !— and so you're the
saint and I'm the sinner !' he cried sarcastically.

' No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon

156 GHETTO COMEDIES

Samuels somewhat unexpectedly. c But I do think
the Saturday was meant for Palestine, not for the
lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules.
When you were in India you probably noted that the
Mohammedans keep Friday. A poor Jew in the
bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday,
of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on
Sunday.'

1 The Fourth Commandment is eternal !' said the
Parnass with obstinate sublimity.

' But the Fifth says, " that thy days may be long
in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." I
believe this reward belongs to all the first five Com-
mandments— not only to the Fifth — else an orphan
would have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath
in the land that the Lord giveth thee ; not in England,
which isn't thine.'

' Oho !' retorted the Parnass. ' Then at that rate in
England you needn't honour your father and mother.'

' Not if you haven't got them !' rejoined Simeon
Samuels. ' And if you haven't got a land, you can't
keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we can keep
the Jubilee also without a country.'

' The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the Parnass
doggedly. ' It has nothing to do with countries.
Before we got to the Promised Land we kept the
Sabbath in the wilderness.'

' Yes, and God sent a double dose of manna on the
Friday. Do you mean to say He sends us here a
double dose of profit ?'

' He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well
enough before you brought your wretched example '

' Then my wretched example cannot lead the con-

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER i$7

gregation away. I am glad of it. You do them
much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.'

* My way !'

' Yes, my dear old father — peace be upon him ! —
would have been scandalized to see the burden you
carry on the Sabbath.'

' What burden do I carry ?'

' Your snuff-box !'

The P amass almost dropped it. ' That little thing !'

4 1 call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless thing.
But before the Almighty there is no great and no
small. One who stands in such a high place in the
synagogue must be especially mindful, and every
unnecessary burden '

' But snuff is necessary for me — I can't do without
it.'

' Other Presidents have done without it. As it is
written in Jeremiah : " And the wild asses did stand
in the high places ; they snuffed up the wind.' '

The Parnass flushed like a beetroot. ' I'll teach
you to know your place, sir.' He turned his back on
the scoffer, and strode towards the door.

' But if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said
Simeon Samuels, ' I have an artistic assortment.'

XV

At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a
notice of motion stood upon the agenda in the name
of the Parnass himself :

4 That this Council views with the greatest repro-

158 GHETTO COMEDIES

bation the breach of the Fourth Commandment com-
mitted weekly by a member of the congregation, and
calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the burial
and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close
his business on the Sabbath.'

When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky
moved as an amendment that weekly be altered into
' twice a week,' since the member kept open on
Friday night as well as Saturday.

The P amass refused to accept the amendment.
There was only one Sabbath a week, though it had
two periods. * And the evening and the morning were
one day.'

Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must
not leave Mr. Simeon Samuels a loophole of escape.
It was also, he said, the duty of the Council to buy a
barometer the rogue had foisted upon him.

After an animated discussion, mainly about the
barometer, the President accepted the amendment,
but produced a great impression by altering ' twice
a week ' into ' bi-weekly.'

A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself
on his style, and had even changed his name to John
because Jacob grated on his delicate ear, refused to be
impressed.

Committed fo'-weekly by a member sounded almost
jocose, he argued. 'Buy! buy!' it sounded like a
butcher's cry.

Mr. Enoch, the kosher butcher, rose amid excitement,
and asked if he had come there to be insulted !

' Sit down ! sit down !' said the Parnass roughly.
4 It's no matter how the resolution sounds. It will be
in writing.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 159

* Then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the
stylist, ' " Committed fa-weekly by a member by buying
and selling.' '

' Order, order !' said the Parnass angrily. ' Those
who are in favour of the resolution ! Carried.'
' By a majority,' sneered the stylist, subsiding.

* Mr. Secretary ' — the President turned to the poor
Reverend-of-all-work — ' you need not record this
verbal discussion in the minutes.'

' By request,' said the stylist, reviving.

' But what's the use of the resolution if you don't
mention the member's name ?' suddenly inquired
Ephraim Mendel, stretching his long, languid limbs.

* But there's only one Sabbath-breaker,' replied the
Parnass.

' To-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.'

' It could hardly be to-morrow,' said the stylist.
1 For that happens to be a Monday.'

Barzinsky bashed the table. ' Mr. President, are
we here for business or are we not ?'

' You may be here for business — I am here for
religion,' retorted Straumann the stylist.

' You — you snub-nosed monke}7, what do you
mean ?'

4 Order, order, gentlemen,' said the Parnass.

' I will not order,' said Solomon Barzinsky excitedly.
' I did not come here to be insulted.'

c Insulted !' quoth Straumann. ' It's you that must
apologize, you illiterate icthyosaurus ! I appeal to
the President.'

' You have both insulted me? was that worthy's
ruling. ' I give the word to Mr. Mendel.'

' But ' from both the combatants simultaneously.

160 GHETTO COMEDIES

' Order, order !' from a dozen throats.

' I said Simeon Samuels' name must be put in,'
Mendel repeated.

' You should have said so before — the resolution is
carried now,' said the President.

4 And a fat lot of good it will do,' said Peleg.
' Gentlemen, if you knew him as well as I, if you had
my barometer to read him by, you'd see that the only
remedy is to put him in Cher em ' (excommunication).

' If he can't get buried it is a kind of Cher em' said
the Gabbai.

1 Assuredly,' added the Parnass. ' He will be fright-
ened to think that if he dies suddenly '

4 And he is sure to take a sudden death,' put in
Barzinsky with unction.

4 He will not be buried among Jews,' wound up the
Parnass.

4 Hear, hear !' A murmur of satisfaction ran round
the table. All felt that Simeon Samuels was cornered at
last. It was resolved that the resolution be sent to him.

XVI

* Mr. Simeon Samuels requests me to say that he
presents his compliments to the secretary of the
Sudminster Hebrew Congregation, and begs to acknow-
ledge the receipt of the Council's resolution. In reply
I am to state that Mr. Samuels regrets that his views
on the Sabbath question should differ from those of
his fellow-worshippers, but he has not attempted to
impress his views on the majority, and he regrets that
in a free country like England they should have
imported the tyranny of the lands of persecution

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 161

from which they came. Fortunately such procedure
is illegal. By the act of Charles I. the Sabbath is
defined as the Sunday, and as a British subject
Mr. Samuels takes his stand upon the British Con-
stitution. Mr. Samuels has done his best to com-
promise with the congregation by attending the
Sabbath service on the day most convenient to the
majority. In regard to the veiled threat of the
refusal of burial rights, Mr. Samuels desires me to say
that he has no intention of dying in Sudminster, but
merely of getting his living there. In any case, under
his will, his body is to be deported to Jerusalem, where
he has already acquired a bury ing-place.'

' Next year in Jerusalem !' cried Barzinsky fervently,
when this was read to the next meeting.

1 Order, order,' said the Parnass. ' I don't believe in
his Jerusalem grave. They won't admit his dead body.'

' He relies on smuggling in alive,' said Barzinsky
gloomily, ' as soon as he has made his pile.'

4 That won't be very long at this rate,' added
Ephraim Mendel.

' The sooner the better,' said the Gabbai impatiently.
' Let him go to Jericho.'

There was a burst of laughter, to the Gabbafs great
astonishment.

' Order, order, gentlemen,' said the Parnass. ' Don't
you see from this insolent letter how right I was ?
The rascal threatens to drag us to the Christian Courts,
that's clear. All that about Jerusalem is only dust
thrown into our eyes.'

' Grave-dust,' murmured Straumann.

4 Order ! He is a dangerous customer.'

* Shopkeeper,' corrected Straumann.

The Parnass glared, but took snuff silently.

ii

162 GHETTO COMEDIES

' I don't wonder he laughed at us,' said Straumann,
encouraged. ' Bi- weekly by a member. Ha ! ha ! ha !'

'Mr. President!5 Barzinsky screamed. 'Will you
throw that laughing hyena out, or shall I ?'

Straumann froze to a statue of dignity. ' Let any
animalcule try it on,' said he.

' Shut up, you children, I'll 'chuck you both out,'
said Ephraim Mendel in conciliatory tones. ' The
point is — what's to be done now, Mr. President ?'

' Nothing — till the end of the year. When he offers
his new subscription we refuse to take it. That can't
be illegal.'

' We ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,'
said Straumann. ' These formal resolutions " Buy !
buy !" put his back up. We'll go to him as brothers —
all Israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than water.'

' Chutney is thicker than blood,' put in the Parnass
mysteriously. ' He'll simply try to palm off his stock
on the deputation.'

Ephraim Mendel and Solomon Barzinsky jumped
up simultaneously. ' What a good idea,' said
Ephraim. ' There you have hit it !' said Solomon.
Their simultaneous popping-up had an air of finality
— like the long and the short of it !

' You mean ?' said the Parnass, befogged in his turn.

' I mean,' said Barzinsky, ' we could buy up his
stock, me and the other marine-dealers between us,
and he could clear out !'

' If he sold it reasonably,' added Mendel.

' Even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for
the Sabbath,' said the Parnass. ' Besides, divided
among the lot of you, the loss would be little.'

' And you can buy in my barometer with the rest,'
added Peleg.

I

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 163

'We could call a meeting of marine-dealers,' said
Barzinsky, disregarding him. ' We could say to them
we must sacrifice ourselves for our religion.'

' Tell that to the marine-dealers !' murmured
Straumann.

' And that we must buy out the Sabbath-breaker at
any cost.'

'Buy! buy!' said Straumann. 'If you'd only
thought of that sort of " Buy ! buy !" at the first !'

' Order, order !' said the P amass.

1 It would be more in order,' said Straumann, ' to
appoint an executive sub-committee to deal with the
question. I'm sick of it. And surely we as a Syna-
gogue Council can't be in order in ordering some of
our members to buy out another.'

' Hear, hear !' His suggestion found general ap-
proval. It took a long discussion, however, before
the synagogue decided to wash its hands of responsi-
bility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the
task of ridding Sudminster of its plague-spot by any
means that commended itself to them.

Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the
pawnbroker were elected to constitute this Council of
Three.

XVII

The glad news spread through the Sudminster Con-
gregation that Simeon Samuels had at last been bought
out — at a terrible loss to the martyred marine-dealers
who had had to load themselves with chutney and
other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. But they
would get back their losses, it was felt, by the removal

II — 2

164 GHETTO COMEDIES

of his rivalry. Carts were drawn up before the dis-
mantled plate-glass window carrying off its criminal
contents, and Simeon Samuels stood stroking his
beard amid the ruins.

Then the shop closed ; the shutters that should have
honoured the Sabbath now depressed the Tuesday.
Simeon Samuels was seen to get into the London train.
The demon that troubled their sanctity had been
exorcised. A great peace reigned in every heart,
almost like the Sabbath peace coming into the middle
of the week.

' If they had only taken my advice earlier,' said
Solomon Barzinsky to his wife, as he rolled his forkful
of beef in the chutney.

' You can write to your father, Deborah,' said
Lazarus Levy, c that we no longer need the superior
reach-me-downs . '

On the Wednesday strange new rumours began to
circulate, and those who hastened to confirm them stood
dumbfounded before great posters on all the shutters :

CLOSED FOR RE-STOCKING

THE OLD-FASHIONED STOCK OF THIS BUSINESS
HAVING BEEN SOLD OFF TO THE TRADE,

SIMEON SAMUELS

IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY
TO LAY IN THE BEST AND MOST UP-TO-DATE

LONDON AND CONTINENTAL GOODS

FOR HIS CUSTOMERS.
BARGAINS AND NOVELTIES IN EVERY DEPARTMENT.

RE-OPEN SATURDAY NEXT

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 165

XVIII

A hurried emergency meeting of the Executive Sub-
Committee was called.

' He has swindled us,' said Solomon Barzinsky.
4 This paper signed by him merely undertakes to shut
up his shop. And he will plead he meant for a day
or two.'

' And he agreed to leave the town,' wailed Peleg,
' but he meant to buy goods.'

'Well, we can have the law of him,' said Mendel.
4 We paid him compensation for disturbance.'

'And can't he claim he was disturbed?' shrieked
Barzinsky. ' His whole stock turned upside down !'

' Let him claim !' said Mendel. ' There is such a
thing as obtaining money under false pretences.'

' And such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock
of the heathen,' said Peleg. ' We must grin and bear
it ourselves.'

' It's all very well for you to grin,' said Solomon
tartly. ' We've got to bear it. You didn't take over
any of his old rubbish.'

' Didn't I, indeed ? What about the barometer ?'

' Confound your barometer !' cried Ephraim Mendel.
' I'll have the law of him ; I've made up my mind.'

' Well, you'll have to bear the cost, then,' said Peleg.
* It's none of my business.'

' Yes, it is,' shouted Mendel. ' As a member of the
Sub-Committee you can't dissociate yourselves from
us.'

' A nice idea that — I'm to be dragged into your
law-suits !'

166 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Hush, leave off these squabbles !' said Solomon
Barzinsky. ' The law is slow, and not even sure. The
time has come for desperate measures. We must root
out the plague-spot with our own hands.'

' Hear, hear,' said the rest of the Sub-Committee.

XIX

On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not
the only figure in the synagogue absorbed in devotion.
Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the
pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest
of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip
about them. Their shops were open, too, it would seem.

Immediately after the service the Parnass arrested
Solomon Barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour
were true.

4 Perfectly true,' replied Solomon placidly. ' The
Executive Sub-Committee passed the resolution to—

4 To break the Sabbath !' interrupted the Parnass.

1 We had already sacrificed our money ; there was
nothing left but to sacrifice our deepest feelings '

c But what for ?'

'Why, to destroy his advantage, of course. Five-
sixths of his Sabbath profits depend on the marine-
dealers closing, and when he sees he's breaking the
Sabbath in vain '

' Rubbish ! You are asked to stop a congregational
infection, and you '

' Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make
sure the attack shall be light.'

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 167

' It's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said Mendel, who,
with Peleg, had lingered to back up Barzinsky.

' Of the mad dog !' exclaimed the P amass. ' And
you're all raging mad.'

' It's the only sane way,' urged Peleg. ' When he
sees his rivals open '

1 You !' The President turned on him. ' You are
not even a marine-dealer. Why are you open ?'

' How could I dissociate myself from the rest of the
Sub-Committee ?' inquired Peleg with righteous indig-
nation.

1 You are a set of sinners in Israel !' cried the Parnass,
forgetting even to take snuff. ' This will split up the
congregation.'

' The congregation through its Council gave the
Committee full power to deal with the matter,' said
Barzinsky with dignity.

' But then the other marine-dealers will open as well
as the Committee !'

c I trust not,' replied Barzinsky fervently. ' Two
of us are enough to cut down his takings.'

' But the whole lot of you would be still more effica-
cious. Oh, this is the destruction of our congregation,
the death of our religion !'

f No, no, no,' said Solomon soothingly. ' You are
mistaken. We are most careful not to touch money.
We are going to trust our customers, and keep our
accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a
most ingenious system, which gives us far more work
than writing, but we have determined to spare our-
selves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from unnecessary
desecration.'

' And once the customers don't pay up, your system

i68

GHETTO COMEDIES

will break down. No, no ; I shall write to the Chief
Rabbi.'

'We will explain our motives,' said Mendel.

* Your motives need no explanation. This scandal
must cease.5

* And who are you to give orders ?' shrieked Solomon
Barzinsky. ' You're not speaking to a Schnorrer, mind
you. My banking account is every bit as big as yours.
For two pins I start an opposition Shool.'

1 A Sunday Shool /' said the P amass sarcastically.

' And why not ? It would be better than sitting
playing solo on Sundays. We are not in Palestine
now.'

' Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has
he?'

' I don't need Simeon Samuels' wisdom. I'm an
Englishman myself '

XX

The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were
successful. The other marine-dealers hastened to
associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and
Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more
pious seaport.

But, alas ! homoeopathy was only half -vindicated.
For the remedy proved worse than the disease, and
the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the
other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic
spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops
of the congregation. Some had it in a mild form—

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 169

only one shutter open, or a back door not closed — but
in many it came out over the whole shop- window.

The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster
Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present
esteemed Parnass is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P.,
managed to avert the threatened split, and that while
in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor
minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches,
the Sudminster congregation still remains at the
happy point of compromise acutely discovered by
Simeon Samuels : of listening reverentially every
Saturday morning to the unchanging principles of
its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged'in
supplying the wants of Christendom.

THE RED MARK

THE RED MARK

THE curious episode in the London Ghetto the other
winter, while the epidemic of small-pox was raging,
escaped the attention of the reporters, though in the
world of the Board-schools it is a vivid memory. But
even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors
and the Board members, have remained ignorant of
the part little Bloomah Beckenstein played in it.

To explain how she came to be outside the school-
gates instead of inside them, we must go back a little
and explain her situation both outside and inside her
school.

Bloomah was probably ' Blume,1 which is German
for a flower, but she had always been spelt ' Bloomah '
in the school register, for even Board-school teachers
are not necessarily familiar with foreign languages.

They might have been forgiven for not connecting
Bloomah with blooms, for she was a sad-faced child,
and even in her tenth year showed deep, dark circles
round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large,
brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience.

Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these
qualities in her youngest born, who seemed to her
entirely sucked up by the school.

' In my days,' she would grumble, ' it used to be

173

174 GHETTO COMEDIES

God Almighty first, your parents next, and school last.
Now it's all a red mark first, your parents and God
Almighty nowhere.'

The red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set
opposite the child's name in the register. To gain it,
she must be in her place at nine o'clock to the stroke.
A moment after nine, and only the black mark was
attainable. Twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the
absent was sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording
Angel, who in Bloomah's case was a pale pupil-teacher
with eyeglasses.

But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the
school horizon, intensifying Bloomah's anxiety and
her mother's grievance.

' I don't see nothing,' Mrs. Beckenstein iterated ;
' no prize, no medal — nothing but a red mark and a
banner.'

The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not un-
furled itself in Mrs. Beckenstein's young days, nor
even in the young days of Bloomah's married brothers
and sisters.

As the worthy matron would say : ' There's been
Jack Beckenstein, there's been Joey Beckenstein,
there's been Briny Beckenstein, there's been Benjy
Beckenstein, there's been Ada Beckenstein, there's
been Becky Beckenstein, God bless their hearts ! and
they all grew up scholards and prize-winners and a
credit to their Queen and their religion without this
meshuggas (madness) of a Banner.'

Vaguely Mrs. Beckenstein connected the degenerate
innovation with the invasion of the school by ' fur-
riners ' — all these hordes of Russian, Polish, and
Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were

THE RED MARK 17 S

sweeping away the good old English families, of which
she considered the Beckensteins a shining example.
What did English people want with banners and such-
like gewgaws ?

The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and
punctuality. It might be said metaphorically to be
made of red marks ; and, indeed, its ground-hue was
purple.

The class that had scored the highest weekly average
of red marks enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for
the next week. It hung by a cord on the classroom
wall, amid the dull, drab maps — a glorious sight with
its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk.
Life moved to a chivalrous music, lessons went more
easily, in presence of its proud pomp : 'twas like
marching to a band instead of painfully plodding.

And the desire to keep it became a passion to the
winners ; the little girls strained every nerve never to
be late or absent ; but, alas ! some mischance would
occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and
gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another
section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as
it disappeared dismally through the door of the cold
and empty room.

Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner.
The black mark on the register was a snowflake com-
pared with the black frown on all those childish fore-
heads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would
meet her return not improbably operated to prolong
her absence.

Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and
that was largely through a yellow fog which hit the
other classes worse.

i;6 GHETTO COMEDIES

For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the
chances of the fold — the black sheep with the black
marks. Perhaps those great rings round her eyes
were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the
poor child grieve over her sins of omission.

Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commis-
sion elsewhere ; for if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it
was only because Bloomah was slaving at something
that her mother considered more important.

' The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second,
and school nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on
her mother.

At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-
rooms she did cooking and washing and sweeping ; in
the shop above, whenever a hand fell sick or work
fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes, school
hours or no school hours.

Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the estab-
lishment, and the portress of goods to and from
S. Cohn's Emporium in Hollo way, and the watch-dog
when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.

4 Lock up the house !' the latter would cry, when
Bloomah tearfully pleaded for that course. ' My things
are much too valuable to be locked up. But I know
you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious
Banner.'

When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren—
and they came frequently — Bloomah would be sum-
moned in hot haste to the new scene of service. Curt
post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived :

' DEAR MOTHER,

4 A son. Send Bloomah

' BRINY.'

THE RED MARK 177

Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted :

' DEAR MOTHER,

' Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to
your heart-broken ' BECKY.'

Occasionally the post-card went the other way :

' DEAR BECKY,

* Send back Bloomah.

' Your loving mother.'

The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part
of Bloomah's burden ; and in the evenings she had to
keep an eye on his street sports and comrades, for
since he had shocked his parents by dumping down
a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be
trusted without supervision.

Not that he had stolen the boots — far worse ! Be-
guiled by a card cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had
attended the evening classes of the Meshummodim,
those converted Jews who try to bribe their brethren
from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execra-
tion of the Ghetto.

Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a
lamb who had escaped from the lions' den, and must
be the object of their vengeful pursuit, while on
Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-
dog.

It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that
Bloomah tried to go to school by day, and do her
home lessons by night. She did not murmur against
her mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised
that the poor woman was similarly distracted between
domestic duties and turns at the machines upstairs.

12

178 GHETTO COMEDIES

Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two
halves of her life. At night she must sit up as late as
her elders, poring over her school books, and in the
morning it was a fierce rush to get through her share
of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs.
Beckenstein's language : ' Don't eat, don't sleep, boil
nor bake, stew nor roast, nor fry, nor nothing.'

Her case was even worse than her mother imagined,
for sometimes it was ten minutes to nine before
Bloomah could sit down to her own breakfast, and
then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was
a terrible hindrance ; and if that good woman's head
was turned, Bloomah would sneak towards the im-
provised sink — which consisted of two dirty buckets,
the one holding the clean water being recognisable by
the tin pot standing on its covering-board — where she
would pour half her tea into the one bucket and fill up
from the other.

When this stratagem was impossible, she almost
scalded herself in her gulpy haste. Then how she
snatched up her satchel and ran through rain, or snow,
or fog, or scorching sunshine ! Yet often she lost her
breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered
tearfully under the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab
at her heart was added to the stitch in her side.

It made her classmates only the angrier that, despite
all her unpunctuality, she kept a high position in the
class, even if she could never quite attain prize-rank.

But there came a week when Bloomah's family
remained astonishingly quiet and self-sufficient, and it
looked as if the Banner might once again adorn the
dry, scholastic room and throw a halo of romance
round the blackboard

THE RED MARK 179

Then a curious calamity befell. A girl who had left
the school for another at the end of the previous week,
returned on the Thursday, explaining that her parents
had decided to keep her in the old school. An indig-
nant heart-cry broke through all the discipline :

* Teacher, don't have her !'

From Bloomah burst the peremptory command :
6 Go back, Sarah !'

For the unlucky children felt that her interval
would now be reckoned one of absence. And they
were right. Sarah reduced the gross attendance by
six, and the Banner was lost.

Yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh
spurt. Again the tantalizing Thursday was reached
before their hopes were dashed. This time the break-
down was even crueller, for every pinafored pupil,
not excluding Bloomah, was in her place, red-marked.

Upon this saintly company burst suddenly Bloomah's
mother, who, ignoring the teacher, and pointing her
finger dramatically at her daughter, cried :

* Bloomah Beckenstein, go home !'

Bloomah's face became one large red mark, at
which all the other girls' eyes were directed. Tears
of humiliation and distress dripped down her cheeks
over the dark rings. If she were thus haled off ere she
had received two hours of secular instruction, her
attendance would be cancelled.

The class was all in confusion. ' Fold arms !' cried
the teacher sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly.
Bloomah obeyed instinctively with the rest.

' Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you
out by your plait ?'

' Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn't come here

12 — 2

i8o GHETTO COMEDIES

like that !' said the teacher in her most ladylike
accents.

' Tell Bloomah that,' answered Mrs. Beckenstein,
unimpressed. ' She's come here by runnin' away
from home. There's nobody but her to see to things,
for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a
weddin' last night, and comin' home at four in the
mornin', and pourin' cats and dogs. If you go to our
house, please, teacher, you'll see my Benjy in bed ;
he's given up his day's work ; he must have his sleep ;
he earns three pounds a week as head cutter at
S. Cohn's — he can afford to be in bed, thank God !
So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein ! Don't they
teach you here : " Honour thy father and thy
mother " ?'

Poor Bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and
mothers should not dishonour their children. With
hanging head she moved to the door, and burst into
a passion of tears as soon as she got outside.

After, if not in consequence of, this behaviour,
Mrs. Beckenstein broke her leg, and lay for weeks
with the limb cased in plaster-of-Paris. That finished
the chances of the Banner for a long time. Between
nursing and house management Bloomah could scarcely
ever put in an attendance.

So heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the
sensitive child day and night that she walked almost
with a limp, and dreamed of her name in the register
with ominous rows of black ciphers ; they stretched on
and on to infinity — in vain did she turn page after
page in the hope of a red mark ; the little black eggs
became larger and larger, till at last horrid horned
insects began to creep from them and scramble all

THE RED MARK 181

over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. Some-
times she lay swathed and choking in the coils of a
Black Banner.

And, to add to these worries, the School Board
officer hovered and buzzed around, threatening sum-
monses.

But at last she was able to escape to her beloved
school. The expected scowl of the room was changed
to a sigh of relief ; extremes meet, and her absence had
been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome.

Bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. The
hope of the Banner flamed anew in every breast. But
the other classes were no less keen ; a fifth standard, in
particular, kept the Banner for a full month, grimly
holding it against all comers, came they ever so regu-
larly and punctually.

Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into
the competition. An epidemic of small-pox broke out
in the East End, with its haphazard effects upon the
varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals
and prizes, all was luck and lottery. The pride of the
fifth standard was laid low ; one of its girls was
attacked, two others were kept at home through
parental panic. A disturbing insecurity as of an
earthquake vibrated through the school. In Bloomah 's
class alone — as if inspired by her martial determination
— the ranks stood firm, unwavering.

The epidemic spread. The Ghetto began to talk of
special psalms in the little synagogues.

In this crisis which the epidemic produced the
Banner seemed drifting steadily towards Bloomah
and her mates. They started Monday morning with
all hands on deck, so to speak ; they sailed round

1 82 GHETTO COMEDIES

Tuesday and Wednesday without a black mark in the
school-lo^ The Thursday on which they had so often
split was passed under full canvas, and if they could
only get through Friday the trophy was theirs.

And Friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as,
in view of the incoming Sabbath, it finished earlier.
School did not break up between the two attendances ;
there was a mere dinner-interval in the playground
at midday. Nobody could get away, and whoever
scored the first mark was sure of the second.

Bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter
morning ; she could run no risks of being late. She
polished off all her house-work, wondering anxiously
if any of her classmates would oversleep herself, yet
at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still

there was always that troublesome small-pox !

She breathed a prayer that God would keep all the
little girls and send them the Banner.

As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-
card for her mother. Bloomah's heart was in her
mouth when Mrs. Beckenstein clucked her tongue in
reading it. She felt sure that the epidemic had
invaded one of those numerous family hearths.

Her mother handed her the card silently.

' DEAR MOTHER,

4 1 am rakked with neural] ia. Send Bloomah
to fry the fish.

1 BECKY.'

Bloomah turned white ; this was scarcely less tragic.

* Poor Becky !' said her heedless parent.

' There's time after school,' she faltered.

' What !' shrieked Mrs. Beckenstein. * And not

THE RED MARK

183

give the fish time to get cold ! It's that red mark
again — sooner than lose it you'd see your own sister
eat hot fish. Be off at once to her, you unnatural brat,
or I'll bang the frying-pan about your head. That'll
give you a red mark — yes, and a black mark, too !
My poor Becky never persecuted me with Banners,
and she's twice the scholard you are.'

1 Why, she can't spell " neuralgia," ' said Bloomah
resentfully.

' And who wants to spell a thing like that ? It's
bad enough to feel it. Wait till you have babies and
neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how you'll
spell.'

' She can't spell " racked " either,' put in Daniel.
His mother turned on him witheringly. * She didn't
go to school with the MeshummodimS

Bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel.
4 What's your books for ? You don't fry fish with
books.' Mrs. Beckenstein wrested it away from her,
and dashed it on the floor. The pencil-case rolled one
way, the thimble another.

' But I can get to school for the afternoon atten-
dance.'

' Madness ! With your sister in agony ? Have
you no feelings ? Don't let me see your brazen face
before the Sabbath !'

Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way
to Becky's her feet turned of themselves by long habit
down the miry street in which the red-brick school-
building rose in dreary importance. The sight of the
great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a
throb of guilt. For a moment she stood wrestling
with the temptation to enter.

1 84 GHETTO COMEDIES

It was but for the moment. She might rise to the
heresy of hot fried fish in lieu of cold, but Becky's
Sabbath altogether devoid of fried fish was a thought
too sacrilegious for her childish brain.

From her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried
fish had been part of her conception of the Day of Rest.
Visions and odours of her mother frying plaice and
soles — at worst, cod or mackerel — were inwoven with
her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath ; it
is probable she thought Friday was short for frying-
day.

With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape
the tug of temptation.

' Bloomah ! Where are you off to ?'
It was the alarmed cry of a classmate. Bloomah
took to her heels, her face a fiery mass of shame and
grief.

Towards midday Becky's fish, nicely browned and
sprigged with parsley, stood cooling on the great blue
willow-pattern dish, and Becky's neuralgia abated,
perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle.

When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed
to scamper off to school in the desperate hope of
saving the afternoon attendance.

The London sky was of lead, and the London
pavement of mud, but her heart was aglow with hope.
As she reached the familiar street a certain strangeness
in its aspect struck her. People stood at the doors
gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots
were a-cooking ; straggling groups possessed the road-
way, impeding her advance, and as she got nearer to
the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became
impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate.

THE RED MARK 185

Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career
ready to cry at this malicious fate fighting against her,
and for the first time allowing herself time to speculate
on what was up. All around her she became aware
of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of
hands.

The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and
Roumanian women of the latest immigration, as she
could tell by the pious wigs hiding their tresses.
Those in the front were pressed against the bars of
the locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them
with passion.

Although Bloomah's knowledge of Yiddish was
slight — as became a scion of an old English
family — she could make out their elemental ejacula-
tions.

' You murderers !'

' Give me my Rachel !'

' They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh
destroyed our sons.'

' Give me back my children, and I'll go back to
Russia.'

1 They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners !'

' O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my
Leah ?'

On the other side of the bars the children — released
for the dinner-interval — were clamouring equally,
shouting, weeping, trying to get to their mothers.
Some howled, with their sleeves rolled up, to exhibit
the upper arm.

4 See,' the women cried, ' the red marks ! Oh, the
poisoners !'

A light began to break upon Bloomah's brain.

1 86 GHETTO COMEDIES

Evidently the School Board had suddenly sent down
compulsory vaccinators.

1 1 won't die,' moaned a plump golden-haired girl.
1 I'm too young to die yet.'

' My little lamb is dying !' A woman near Bloomah,
with auburn wisps showing under her black wig,
wrung her hands. { I hear her talk — always, always
about the red mark. Now they have given it her.
She is poisoned — my little apple.'

' Your little carrot is all right,' said Bloomah
testily. ' They've only vaccinated her.'

The woman caught at the only word she under-
stood. ' Vaccinate, vaccinate !' she repeated. Then,
relapsing into jargon and raising her hands heaven-
ward : ' A sudden death upon them all !'

Bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless
woman. One stood at her elbow.

' Can't you explain to her that the doctors mean no
harm ?' Bloomah asked.

' Oh, don't they, indeed ? Just you read this !'
She flourished a handbill, English on one side, Yiddish
on the other.

Bloomah read the English version, not without
agitation :

* Mothers, look after your little ones ! The School
Tyrants are plotting to inject filthy vaccine into their
innocent veins. Keep them away rather than let them
be poisoned to enrich the doctors.'

There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah.
What wonder if the refugees from lands of persecution
— lands in which anything might happen — believed
they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if
the rumour that executioners with instruments had

THE RED MARK 187

entered the school - buildings had run like wildfire
through the quarter, enflaming Oriental imagination
to semi-madness.

While Bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman
fainted, and the din and frenzy grew.

' But I was vaccinated when a baby, and I'm all
right,' murmured Bloomah, half to reassure herself.

' My arm ! I'm poisoned !' And another pupil
flew frantically towards the gate.

The women outside replied with a dull roar of rage,
and hurled themselves furiously against the lock.

A window on the playground was raised with a
sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting
alternately at the children and the parents ; but she
was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone
shook an answering fist.

' You old maid — childless, pitiless !'

Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every
side, and soon a posse of eight policemen were battling
with the besiegers, trying to push themselves between
them and the gate. A fat and genial officer worked
his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action.

' Don't hurt the poor women,' Bloomah pleaded.
* They think their children are being poisoned.'

' I know, missie. What can you do with such
greenhorns ? Why don't they stop in their own
country ? I've just been vaccinated myself, and it's
no joke to get my arm knocked about like this !'

' Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet
them.'

The policeman laughed. A sleeveless policeman ! It
would destroy all the dignity and prestige of the force.

4 Then I'll show them mine,' said Bloomah reso-

1 88 GHETTO COMEDIES

lutely. * Mine are old and not very showy, but
perhaps they'll do. Lift me up, please — I mean on
your un vaccinated arm.'

Overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted
her on his burly shoulder. The apparent arrest made
a diversion ; all eyes turned towards her.

'You Narronimf (fools), she shrieked, desperately
mustering her scraps of Yiddish. ' Your children are
safe. Ich bin vaccinated. Look !' She rolled up
her sleeve. ' Der policeman ist vaccinated. Look—
if I tap him he winces. See !'

' Hold on, missie !' The policeman grimaced.

' The King ist vaccinated,5 went on Bloomah, ' and
the Queen, and the Prince of Wales, yes, even the
Teachers themselves. There are no devils inside
there. This paper ' — she held up the bill — ' is lies and
falsehood.' She tore it into fragments.

' No ; it is true as the Law of Moses,' retorted a man
in the mob.

' As the Law of Moses !' echoed the women hoarsely.

Bloomah had an inspiration. ' The Law of Moses !
Pooh ! Don't you know this is written by the
Meshummodim ?'

The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the
handbill was written by apostates, what could it hold
but Satan's lies ?

Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. ' Go
home, you Narronimf she cried pityingly from her
perch. And then, veering round towards the children
behind the bars ; ' Shut up, you squalling sillies !' she
cried. ' As for you, Golda Benjamin, I'm ashamed of
you — a girl of your age ! Put your sleeve down, cry-
baby !'

THE RED MARK

189

Bloomah would have carried the day had not her
harangue distracted the police from observing another
party of rioters — women, assisted by husbands hastily
summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering
at a side gate. And at this very instant they burst
it open, and with a great cry poured into the playground,
screaming and searching for their progeny.

The police darted round to the new battlefield,
expecting an attack upon doors and windows, and
Bloomah was hastily set down in the seething throng
and carried with it in the wake of the police, who could
not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.

The large playground became a pandemonium of
parents, children, police, and teachers all shouting and
gesticulating. But there was no riot. The law could
not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching their
offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed.
The children who had not the luck to be kidnapped
escaped of themselves, some panic-stricken, some
merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the school
was empty.

The School Management Committee sat formally
to consider this unprecedented episode. It was
decided to cancel the attendance for the day. Red
marks, black marks — all fell into equality ; the very
ciphers were reduced to their native nothingness.
The school- week was made to end on the Thursday.

Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk,
happiest of a radiant sisterhood. On the wall shone
the Banner.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

WHEN her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya — as
everybody called the old clo'-woman — was not over-
pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined before-
hand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three,
almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be
a profitable transaction. But when a husband actually
presented himself, all the old dealer's critical maternity
was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had
not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut
of his clothes a subtle suggestion of going to the
races.

It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had
never gone to the races, that his duties as book-
keeper of S, Cohn's Clothing Emporium prevented
him from going to the races, and that the cut of his
clothes was intended to give tone to his own establish-
ment.

' Ah, yes, he does not take thee to the races,' she
insisted in Yiddish. ' But all these young men with
check suits and flowers in their buttonholes bet and
gamble and go to the bad, and their wives and children
fall back on their old mothers for support.'

i93 13

194 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 1 shall not fall back on thee,' Fanny retorted
angrily.

' And on whom else ? A pretty daughter ! Would
you fall back on a stranger ? Or perhaps you are
thinking of the Board of Guardians !' And a shudder
of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. For at
sixty she was already meagre, had already the appear-
ance of the venerable grandmother she was now to
become, save that her hair, being only a pious wig,
remained rigidly young and black. Life had always
gone hard with her. Since her husband's death, when
Fanny was a child, she had scraped together a scanty
livelihood by selling odds and ends for a mite more
than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas she
haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old-
clo' woman linked by their common love of a bargain.

Natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle
of ancient finery on the floor and spurn it with her foot.
' How can I sell that ?' she would inquire. ' Last time
I gave you too much — I lost by you.5 And having
wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would
pay it in clanking silver and copper from a grimy
leather bag she wore hidden in her bosom ; then,
cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack,
she would stagger joyously away. The men's garments
she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the
women's she cleaned and turned and transmogrified
and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning ;
scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a
humble agent in the great economic process by which
cast-off clothes renew their youth and freshness, and
having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on
other social horizons.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

195

Of English she had, when she began, only enough
to bargain with ; but in one year of forced intercourse
with English folk after her husband's death she learnt
more than in her quarter of a century of residence in
the Spitalfields Ghetto.

Fanny's function had been to keep house and pre-
pare the evening meal, but the old clo'-woman's objec-
tion to her marriage was not selfish. She was quite
ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater
after the day's tramp. Fanny had, indeed, offered to
have her live in the elegant two-roomed cottage near
King's Cross which Henry was furnishing. She could
sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour. But the
old woman's independent spirit and her mistrust of
her son-in-law made her prefer the humble Ghetto
garret. Against all reasoning, she continued to feel
something antipathetic in Henry's clothes and even in
his occupation — perhaps it was really the subconscious
antagonism of the old clo' and the new, subtly symbolic
of the old generation and the smart new world springing
up to tread it down. Henry himself was secretly
pleased at her refusal. In the first ardours of court-
ship he had consented to swallow even the Polish crone
who had strangely mothered his buxom British Fanny,
but for his own part he had a responsive horror of
old clo' ; felt himself of the great English world of
fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly
Britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool
at his glass-environed desk, and in touch even with
the lion comique, the details of whose cheap but stylish
evening dress he entered v/ith a proud flourish.

13—2

ig6 GHETTO COMEDIES

II

The years went by, and it looked as if the old
woman's instinct were awry. Henry did not go to
the races, nor did Fanny have to fall back on her
mother-in-law for the maintenance of herself and her
two children, Becky and Joseph. On the contrary,
she doubled her position in the social scale by taking
a four-roomed house in the Hollo way Road. Its
proximity to the Clothing Emporium enabled Henry
to come home for lunch. But, alas ! Fanny was not
allowed many years of enjoyment of these grandeurs
and comforts. The one-roomed grave took her, leav-
ing the four-roomed house incredibly large and empty.
Even Natalya's Ghetto garret, which Fanny had not
shared for seven years, seemed cold and vacant to the
poor mother. A new loneliness fell upon her, not
mitigated by ever rarer visits to her grandchildren.
Devoid of the link of her daughter, the house seemed
immeasurably aloof from her in the social scale. Henry
was frigid and the little ones went with marked reluc-
tance to this stern, forbidding old woman who ques-
tioned them as to their prayers and smelt of red-
herrings. She ceased to go to the house.

And then at last all her smouldering distrust of
Henry Elkman found overwhelming justification.

Before the year of mourning was up, before he was
entitled to cease saying the Kaddish (funeral hymn)
for her darling Fanny, the wretch, she heard, was
married again. And married — villainy upon villainy,
horror upon horror — to a Christian girl, a heathen
abomination. Natalya was wrestling with her over-

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

197

full sack when she got the news from a gossiping lady
client, and she was boring holes for the passage of
string to tie up its mouth. She turned the knife
viciously, as if it were in Henry Elkman's heart.

She did not know the details of the piquant, tender
courtship between him and the pretty assistant at the
great drapery store that neighboured the Holloway
Clothing Emporium, any more than she understood
the gradual process which had sapped Henry's instinct
of racial isolation, or how he had passed from admira-
tion of British ways into entire abandonment of Jewish.
She was spared, too, the knowledge that latterly her
own Fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of
impiety ; that they had ridden for a breath of country
air on Sabbath afternoons. They had been considerate
enough to hide that from her. To the old clo'- woman's
crude mind, Henry Elkman existed as a monster of
ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that
he had been married in church and baptized, despite
that her informant tried to console her with the assur-
ance that the knot had been tied in a Registrar's
office.

' May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh !' she
cried in her picturesque jargon. ' May his fine clothes
fall from his flesh and his flesh from his bones ! May
my Fanny's outraged soul plead against him at the
Judgment Bar ! And she — this heathen female — may
her death be sudden !' And she drew the ends of the
string tightly together, as though round the female's
neck.

' Hush, you old witch !' cried the gossip, revolted ;
* and what would become of your own grandchildren ?'

* They cannot be worse off than they are now, with

198 GHETTO COMEDIES

a heathen in the house. All their Judaism will become
corrupted. She may even baptize them. Oh, Father
in Heaven !'

The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the
innocent Becky and Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the
best there would be no kosher food in the house any
more. How could this stranger understand the
mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates
from butter-plates ?

At last she could bear the weight no longer. She
took the Elkman house in her rounds, and, bent under
her sack, knocked at the familiar door. It was lunch-
time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted
along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented
bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not
comfort her ; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute
symbol of the Jewish past.

A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-
coloured cheeks opened the door.

The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she
could hardly see.

' Old clo',' she said mechanically.

' No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her
voice was sweet, but it sounded to Natalya like the
voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born children. Her rosy
cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the
background glistened the dual crockery of the erst
pious kitchen which the new-comer profaned. And
between Natalya and it, between Natalya and her
grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand
barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold
without explanations.

4 Is Mr. Elkman at home ?' she asked.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

199

* You know the name !' said the young woman, a
little surprised.

* Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old
woman's sardonic accent was lost on the listener.

' I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she
replied.

' Not even a pair of old shoes ?'

'No.'

' But the dead woman's ? Are you, then,

standing in them ?'

The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's
eyes blazed so weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with
a little shriek.

' Henry !' she cried.

Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but
came to a sudden standstill.

'What do you want here ?' he muttered.

' Fanny's shoes !' she cried.

'Who is it ?' his wife's eyes demanded.

' A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,'
he gestured back. And he put her inside the room-
door, whispering, ' Let me get rid of her.'

' So, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-
in-law in Yiddish.

' Painted ?' he said angrily. ' Madge painted ?
She's just as natural as a rosy apple. She's a country
girl, and her mother was a lady.'

' Her mother ? Perhaps ! But she ? You see a
glossy high hat marked sixteen and sixpence, and you
think it's new. But I know what it's come from — a
battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. Ah, how
she could have bewitched you, when there are so many
honest Jewesses without husbands !

200 GHETTO COMEDIES

'I am sorry she doesn't please you ; but, after all,
it's my business, and not yours.'

' Not mine ? After I gave you my Fanny, and she
slaved for you and bore you children ?'

' It's just for her children that I had to marry.'

' What ? You had to marry a Christian for the sake
of Fanny's children ? Oh, God forgive you !'

4 We are not in Poland now,' he said sulkily.

' Ah, I always said you were a sinner in Israel. My
Fanny has been taken for your sins. A black death
on your bones.'

' If you don't leave off cursing, I shall call a police-
man.'

' Oh, lock me up, lock me up — instead of your shame.
Let the whole world know that.'

' Go away, then. You have no right to come here
and frighten Madge — my wife. She is in delicate
health, as it is.'

' May she be an atonement for all of us ! I have
the right to come here as much as I please.'

' You have no right.'

1 1 have a right to the children. My blood is in
their veins.'
, * You have no right. The children are their father's.'

' Yes, their Father's in heaven,' and she raised her
hand like an ancient prophetess, while the other sup-
ported her bag over her shoulder. * The children are
the children of Israel, and they must carry forward
the yoke of the Law.'

' And what do you propose ?' he said, with a scornful
sniff.

* Give me the children. I will elevate them in the
fear of the Lord. You go your own godless way, free

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 201

of burdens — you and your Christian poppet. You no
longer belong to us. Give me the children, and I'll
go away.'

He looked at her quizzingly. ' You have been
drinking, my good mother-in-law.'

8 Ay, the waters of affliction. Give me the children.'

' But they won't go with you. They love their step-
mother.'

' Love that painted jade ? They, with Jewish blood
warm in their veins, with the memory of their mother
warm in their hearts ? Impossible !'

He opened the door gently. ' Becky ! Joe ! No,
don't you come, Madge, darling. It's all right. The
old lady wants to say " Good-day " to the children.'

The two children tripped into the passage, with
napkins tied round their chins, their mouths greasy,
but the rest of their persons unfamiliarly speckless and
tidy. They stood still at the sight of their grand-
mother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door
carefully.

' My lambs !' Natalya cried, in her sweetest but
harsh tones, ' Won't you come and kiss me ?'

Becky, a mature person of seven, advanced courage-
ously and surrendered her cheek to her grandmother.

' How are you, granny ?' she said ceremoniously.

' And Joseph ?' said Natalya, not replying. ' My
heart and my crown, will he not come ?'

The four-and-a-half year old Joseph stood dubiously,
with his fist in his mouth.

' Bring him to me, Becky. Tell him I want you
and him to come and live with me.'

Becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. ' He
may. I won't,' she said laconically.

202 GHETTO COMEDIES

6 Oh, Becky !' said the grandmother. ' Do you
want to stay here and torture your poor mother ?'

Becky stared. ' She's dead,' she said.

' Yes, but her soul lives and watches over you.
Come, Joseph, apple of my eye, come with me.'

She beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining
the invitation was to enter her bag and be literally
carried away therein, set up a terrific howl. Thereupon
the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and the
child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to
her and nestled in her arms.

' Mamma, mamma,' he cried.

Henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant
smile.

Natalya went hot and cold. It was not only that
little Joseph had gone to this creature. It was not
evea that he had accepted her maternity. It was this
word c mamma ' that stung. The word summed up
all the blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity.
1 Mamma ' was redolent of cold Christian houses in
whose doorways the old clo'-woman sometimes heard
it. Fanny had been ' mother ' — the dear, homely,
Jewish ' mother.' This ' mamma,' taught to the
orphans, was like the haughty parade of Christian
elegance across her grave.

' When mamma's shoes are to be sold, don't forget
me,' Natalya hissed. ' I'll give you the best price in
the market.'

Henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her
outside : c Certainly, certainly. Good-afternoon.'

' I'll buy them at your own price — ah, I see them
coming, coming into my bag.'

The door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity,

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 203

and Henry clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom
and pressed a long kiss upon her fragrant cherry lips.

Later on he explained that the crazy old clo'-woman
was known to the children, as to everyone in the
neighbourhood, as ' Granny.'

Ill /

In the bearing of her first child the second Mrs.
Elkman died. The rosy face became a white angelic
mask, the dainty figure lay in statuesque severity, and
a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was the
compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was
overwhelmed by grief and superstition.

' For three things women die in childbirth,' kept
humming in his brain from his ancient Hebrew lore.
He did not remember what they were, except that one
was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire the
lump of dough from the Sabbath bread. But these
neglects could not be visited on a Christian, he thought
dully. The only distraction of his grief was the infant's
pressing demand on his attention.

It was some days before the news penetrated to the
old woman.

' It is his punishment,' she said with solemn satis-
faction. c Now my Fanny's spirit will rest.'

But she did not gloat over the decree of the God of
Israel as she had imagined beforehand, nor did she call
for the dead woman's old clo'. She was simply con-
tent— an unrighteous universe had been set straight
again like a mended watch. But she did call, without

204

GHETTO COMEDIES

her bag, to inquire if she could be of service in this
tragic crisis.

1 Out of my sight, you and your evil eye !' cried Henry
as he banged the door in her face.

Natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions.
So she was still to be shut out.

IV

The next news that leaked into Natalya's wizened
ear was as startling as Madge's death. Henry had
married again. Doubtless with the same pretext of
the children's needs he had taken unto himself a third
wife, and again without the decencies of adequate
delay. And this wife was a Jewess, as of yore. Henry
had reverted matrimonially to the fold. Was it con-
science, was it terror ? Nobody knew. But every-
body knew that the third Mrs. Elkman was a bouncing
beauty of a good orthodox stock, that she brought
with her fifty pounds in cash, besides bedding and
house-linen accumulated by her parents without pre-
vision that she would marry an old hand, already
provided with these household elements.

The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled
than ever. She felt vaguely that the Jewish minister
should not so unquestioningly have accorded the scamp
the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral
rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian
conjunction. And the memory of Fanny was still
outraged by this burying of her, so to speak, under
layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 205

children would revert to Judaism, and they would have
a Jewish mother, not a mamma, to care for them and
to love them. The thought consoled her for being
shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been,
even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had
alienated her from the household, had made her kin-
ship practically remote. She had sunk to a sort of
third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed.

The days went on, and again the Elkman household
occupied the gossips, and news of it — second-hand,
like everything that came to her — was picked up by
Natalya on her rounds. Henry's third wife was, it
transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was
frightful, she beat her step-children, and — worst and
rarest sin in the Jewish housewife — she drank. Henry
v/as said to be in despair.

1 Nebbich, the poor little children !' cried Natalya,
horrified. Her brain began plotting how to interfere,
but she could find no way.

The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the
iniquities of the third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last
came the thunder-clap — Henry had disappeared with-
out leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent
brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The
Clothing Emporium knew him no more. Some whis-
pered suicide, others America. Benjamin Beckenstein,
the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter
hypothesis reported a significant saying : ' I have lived
with two angels ; I can't live with a demon.'

1 Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,' said
Natalya, neglecting to draw the deduction anent
America, and passing over the other angel. And she
embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man

206 GHETTO COMEDIES

who had known the blessing of a sober, God-fearing
wife endure a drunkard and a child-beater ? ' No
wonder he killed himself !'

The gossips pointed out that the saying implied
flight rather than suicide.

' You are right !' Natalya admitted illogically.
' Just what a coward and blackguard like that would
do — leave the children at the mercy of the woman he
couldn't face himself. How in Heaven's name will
they live ?'

' Oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after
them,' the gossips assured her. ' He gave her good
money, you know, fifty pounds and the bedding.
Ah, trust Elkman for that. He knew he wasn't leaving
the children to starve.'

' I don't know so much,' said the old woman, shaking
her bewigged head.

What was to be done ? Suppose the furrier refused
the burden. But Henry's flight, she felt, had removed
her even farther from the Elkman household. If she
went to spy out the land, she would now have to face
the virago in possession. But no ! on second thoughts
it was this other woman whom Henry's flight had
changed to a stranger. What had the wretch to do
with the children ? She was a mere intruder in the
house. Out with her, or at least out with the children.

Yes, she would go boldly there and demand them.
' Poor Becky ! Poor Joseph !' her heart wailed.
' You to be beaten and neglected after having known
the love of a mother.' True, it would not be easy to
support them. But a little more haggling, a little
more tramping, a little more mending, and a little less
gorging and gormandising ! They would be at school

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 207

during the day, so would not interfere with her rounds,
and in the evening she could have them with her as
she sat refurbishing the purchases of the day. Ah,
what a blessed release from the burden of loneliness,
heavier than the heaviest sack ! It was well worth
the price. And then at bedtime she would say the
Hebrew night-prayer with them and tuck them up,
just as she had once done with her Fanny.

But how if the woman refused to yield them up —
as Natalya could fancy her refusing — out of sheer
temper and devilry ? What if, amply subsidized by her
well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little ones by
her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or
hold them hostages for his return ? Why, then,
Natalya would use cunning — ay, and force, too — she
would even kidnap them. Once in their grandmother's
hands, the law would see to it that they did not go
back to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights
over them were nil.

It was while buying up on a Sunday afternoon the
sloughed vestments of a Jewish family in Hollo way
that her resolve came to a head. A cab would be
necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret.
What an opportunity for carrying off the children at
the same time ! The house was actually on her home-
ward route. The economy of it tickled her, made her
overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed
the motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of
her sack, pressing and squeezing the clothes incredibly
tighter and tighter till it seemed a magic sack that
could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Em-
porium, Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-
pictures of the coming adventure.

208 GHETTO COMEDIES

Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to
fetch a cab. Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied
Natalya half an hour. She would harangue the
Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty,
and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a
ridiculous sum. At first none of them would take
notice of the old Jewish crone, but would read their
papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually,
as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream
of persuasion would begin to percolate, and at last
one would relent, half out of pity, and would end by
bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder from the
house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite
filling the interior of a four-wheeler, and then Natalya
would ride triumphantly beside her cabby on the box,
the two already the best of friends. Things went ill
if Natalya did not end by trading off something in the
sacks against the fare — at a new profit.

But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a
mediocre bargain. The cumbrous sack was hoisted
into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside it, and in a
resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment
at the Elkman home.

The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky
to the door ere her grandmother could jump out. She
was still under ten, but prematurely developed in
body as in mind. There was something unintention-
ally insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

209

of adults as equals ; but now her face changed almost
to a child's, and with a glad tearful cry of ' Oh, grand-
mother !' she sprang into the old woman's arms.

It was the compensation for little Joseph's ' mamma.'
Tears ran down the old woman's cheeks as she hugged
the strayed lamb to her breast.

A petulant infantile wail came from within, but
neither noted it.

' Where is your step-mother, my poor angel ? '
Natalya asked in a half whisper.

Becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her
face became a woman's again. ' One o'clock the
public-houses open on Sundays,' she snorted.

' Oh, my God !' cried Natalya, forgetting that the
circumstance was favouring her project. ' A Jewish
woman ! You don't mean to say that she drinks in
public-houses ?'

' You don't suppose I would let her drink here,' said
Becky. 'We have nice scenes, I can tell you. The
only consolation is she's better-tempered when she's
quite drunk.'

The infant's wail rang out more clamorously.

' Hush, you little beast !' Becky ejaculated, but
she moved mechanically within, and her grandmother
followed her.

All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed
overclouded with shabbiness and untidiness. To
Natalya everything looked and smelt like the things
in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a 'baby
wrinkled its red face with shrieking.

Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its
existence penetrated at all to the old woman's pre-
occupied brain. Its pipings had been like an un-

14

210 GHETTO COMEDIES

heeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic
experience. Even when she realized the child's
existence her brain groped for some seconds in search
of its identity.

Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted
poppet's life ! So it still lived and howled in unwelcome
reminder and perpetuation of that brief but shameful
episode. ' Grow dumb like your mother,' she mur-
mured resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry
Elkman had left behind him ! Ah, how right she had
been to suspect him from the very first !

' But where is my little Joseph ?' she said aloud.

c He's playing somewhere in the street.'

* Ach, mein Gott / Playing, when he ought to be
weeping like this child of shame. Go and fetch him
at once !'

' What do you want him for ?'

' I am going to take you both away — out of this
misery. You'd like to come and live with me — eh,
my lamb ?'

' Rather — anything's better than this.'

Natalya caught her to her breast again.

' Go and fetch my Joseph ! But quick, quick, before
the public-house woman comes back !'

Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair,
breathless with emotion and fatigue. The baby in
the cradle beside her howled more vigorously, and
automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she
heard herself singing :

' Sleep, little baby, sleep,
Thy father shall be a Rabbi ;
Thy mother shall bring thee almonds ;
Blessings on thy little head/

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 211

As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock
that she was rocking this misbegotten infant — nay,
singing to it a Jewish cradle-song full of inappropriate
phrases. She withdrew her foot as though the rocker
had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out
with fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her
foot to its old place. ' Nu, nil? she cried, rocking
violently, e go to sleep.'

She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw
that the teat of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth.
' There, there — suck !' she said, readjusting it. The
baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at her, a wonder-
ful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya
trembled ; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted
the memory of Fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now
sucking contentedly were the cherry lips of the painted
poppet.

c Nebbich ; the poor, deserted little orphan,' she
apologized to herself. ' And this is how the new
Jewish wife does her duty to her step-children. She
might as well have been a Christian.' Then a remem-
brance that the Christian woman had seemingly been
an unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts
further. And while she was groping among them
Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his turn haled
in a kite with a long tail.

The boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate
towards his grandmother with Becky's eagerness.
Probably he felt the domestic position less. But he sur-
rendered himself to her long hug. ' Did she beat him,'
she murmured soothingly, ' beat my own little Joseph ?'

4 Don't waste time, granny,' Becky broke in petu-
lantly, ' if we are going.'

14—2

212 GHETTO COMEDIES

' No, my dear. We'll go at once.' And, releasing
the boy, Natalya partly undid the lower buttons of his
waistcoat.

' You wear no four-corner fringes !' she exclaimed
tragically. ' She neglects even to see to that. Ah,
it will be a good deed to carry you from this godless
home.'

' But I don't want to go with you,' he said sullenly,
reminded of past inquisitorial worry ings about prayers.

' You little fool !' said Becky. ' You are going —
and in that cab.'

4 In that cab ?' he cried joyfully.

' Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again.'

' Oh, she don't hurt !' he said contemptuously.
' She hasn't even got a cane — like at school.'

' But shan't we take our things ?' said Becky.

c No, only the things you stand in. They shan't
have any excuse for taking you back. I'll find you
plenty of clothes, as good as new.'

' And little Daisy ?'

' Oh, is it a girl ? Your stepmother will look after
that. She can't complain of one burden.'

She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the
sack and herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette.

* I say, I didn't bargain for extras inside,' grumbled
the cabman.

1 You can't reckon these children,' said Natalya,
with confused legal recollections ; ' they're both under
seven.'

The cabman started. Becky stared out of the
window. * I wonder if we'll pass Mrs. Elkman,' she
said, amused. Joseph busied himself with disentangling
the tails of his kite.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS

213

But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their in-
difference to her. That poor little Daisy ! The image
of the baby swam vividly before her. What a terrible
fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman !
Who knew what would happen to it ? What if, in
her drunken fury at the absence of Becky and Joseph,
she did it a mischief ? At the best the besotted
creature would not take cordially to the task of
bringing it up. It was no child of hers — had not even
the appeal of pure Jewish blood. And there it lay,
smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. It had smiled
trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave
it to its fate. And now it was crying ; she heard
it crying above the rattle of the cab. But how could
she charge herself with it — she, with her daily rounds
to make ? The other children were grown up, passed
the day at school. No, it was impossible. And the
child's cry went on in her imagination louder and
louder.

She put her head out of the window. ' Turn back !
Turn back ! I've forgotten something.'

The cabman swore. ' D'ye think you've taken me
by the week ?'

' Threepence extra. Drive back.'

The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a
stinging flip of the whip, and set off briskly.

'What have you forgotten, grandmother?' said
Becky. c It's very careless of you.'

The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round
nervously, sprang out, and then uttered a cry of despair.

' Ach, we shut the door !' And the inaccessible
baby took on a tenfold desirability.

' It's all right,' said Becky. ' Just turn the handle.'

214

GHETTO COMEDIES

Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby,
not crying, but sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched
it up frenziedly, and hurried the fresh-squalling bundle
into the cab.

' Taking Daisy ?' cried Becky. c But she isn't yours !'
Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang,
and the vehicle turned again Ghet towards.

VI

The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the
children could not be kept a secret, but the step-
mother's family made no effort to regain them, and,
indeed ,the woman herself shortly went the way of
all Henry Elkman's wives, though whether she, like
the rest, had a successor, is unknown.

The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-
familias was not, however, so charming as Natalya had
imagined. The cost of putting Daisy out to nurse was
a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared -to the
tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grand-
children, who began to grumble on the first night at
the poverty and pokiness of the garret, and were
thenceforward never without a lament for the good
old times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt
by the father and the irregular menage. The Christian
wife's influence had been refining but too temporary.
It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the
religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to
add to the grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him
back to the yoke^of piety.

.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 215

The only sweet in Natalya's cup turned out to be
the love of little Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful,
gracious, and winning.

Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All
Daisy did seemed to her perfect. For instant obedi-
ence and instant comprehension she declared her
matchless.

One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the
grandmother that in her momentary absence Becky
had pulled Joseph's hair.

'Hush! You mustn't tell tales,' Natalya said
reprovingly.

' Becky did not pull Joey's hair,' Daisy corrected
herself instantly.

Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to out-
grow the Ghetto, even while she unconsciously mani-
fested its worst heritages, Daisy picked up the Yiddish
words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky's remon-
strances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was
not the only subject of dispute between Becky and
the grandmother, whom she roundly accused of
favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen
when, with an independence otherwise praiseworthy,
she set up for herself on her earnings in the fur establish-
ment of her second step-mother's father, lodging with
a family who, she said, bored her less than her grand-
mother.

In another year or so, freed from the compulsory
education of the School Board, Joseph joined her.
And thus, by the unforeseen turns of Fortune's wheel,
the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone
with the child of seven.

But this child was compensation for all she had

216 GHETTO COMEDIES

undergone, for all the years of trudging and grubbing
and patching and turning. Daisy threaded her needle
for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail, and
while she made the old clo' into new, Daisy read aloud
her English story-books. Natalya took an absorbing
interest in these nursery tales, heard for the first time
in her second childhood. ' Jack the Giant-killer,'
'Aladdin,' 'Cinderella,' they were all delightful
novelties. The favourite story of both was ' Little
Red Riding-Hood,' with its refrain of ' Grandmother,
what large eyes you've got !' That could be said
with pointed fun ; it seemed to be written especially
for them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and
say : ' Grandmother, what a large mouth you've got !'
' All the better to bite you with,' grandmother would
reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.

But Friday night was the great night, the one night
of the week on which Natalya could be stopped from
working. Only religion was strong enough to achieve
that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper candle-
sticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted
as soon as the welcome dusk announced the advent of
the holy day, and they shed their pious illumination
on her dish of fish and the ritually-twisted loaves.
And after supper Natalya would sing the Hebrew
grace at much leisurely length and with great unction.
Then she would tell stories of her youth in Poland —
comic tales mixed with tales of oppression and the
memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would weep
and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed
made her sensitive and intelligent beyond the common,
and Natalya was not unjustified in planning out for
her some illustrious future.

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 217

But after eighteen months of this delightful life
Natalya's wonderful vitality began slowly to collapse.
She earned less and less, and, amid her gratitude to
God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky
and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would
she be taken away before Daisy became self-support-
ing ? Nay, would she even be able to endure the
burden till the end ? What made things worse was
that, owing to the increase of immigrants, her landlord
now exacted an extra shilling a week for rent. When
Daisy was asleep the old woman hung over the bed,
praying for life, for strength.

It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from
door to door, under the ever-swelling sack, almost
intolerable. And a little thing occurred to bring
home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources,
physical and financial. The children's country holiday
was in the air at Daisy's Board School, throwing an
aroma and a magic light over the droning class-room.
Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a
cottager in Kent ; but towards the expenses the
child's parent or guardian was expected to contribute
four shillings. Daisy might have gone free had she
pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant
investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank.
She shrank even more from frightening the poor child by
uncovering the skeleton of poverty. Most of all she
shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural delights on
which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation.
Natalya did not think much of the country herself,
having been born in a poor Polish village, amid huts
and pigs, but she would not disillusion Daisy.

By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles

218 GHETTO COMEDIES

of bargaining with bewildered housewives, Natalya
raised the four shillings, and the unconscious Daisy
glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the
platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief
wet with tears.

That first night without the little sunshiny presence
was terrible for the old-clo' woman. The last prop
against decay and collapse seemed removed. But the
next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which
the greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she
was able to take up her sack again and go forth into
the sweltering streets.

In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying
that she had found a particular friend in an old lady,
very kind and rich, who took her for drives in a chaise,
and asked her many questions. This old lady seemed
to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw
her playing outside the cottage.

' Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child
when I am gone,' thought Natalya, for the task of
going down and up the stairs to get this letter read
made her feel as if she would never go up and down
them again.

Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-
room neighbour, the cobbler's wife, tended her and
sent for the ' penny doctor.' But she would not
have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short.
On the day Daisy was to come back she insisted,
despite all advice and warning, in being up and dressed.
She sent everybody away, and lay on her bed till she
heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her feet,
and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But
the sound of other footsteps, and the entry of a

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 219

spectacled, silver-haired old gentlewoman with the
child, spoilt her intended hug. Daisy's new friend
had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically
at the strange lady and the sunburnt child.

' Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got !'
And Daisy ran laughingly towards her.

The usual repartee was wanting.

' And the room is not tidied up,' Natalya said
reproachfully, and began dusting a chair for the
visitor. But the old lady waved it aside.

' I have come to thank you for all you have done for
my grandchild.'

' Your grandchild ?' Natalya fell back on the bed.

'Yes. I have had inquiries made — it is quite cer-
tain. Daisy was even called after me. I am glad of
that, at least.' Her voice faltered.

Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending
under sacks would allow.

' And you have come to take her from me !' she
shrieked.

Already Daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the
sign of life that belonged elsewhere.

4 No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough
from my selfishness. It was my bad temper drove
my daughter from me.' She bowed her silver head
till her form seemed as bent as Natalya's. * What can
I do to repair — to atone ? Will you not come and
live with me in the country, and let me care for you ?
I am not rich, but I can offer you every comfort.'

Natalya shook her head. ' I am a Jewess. I could
not eat with you.'

' That's just what / told her, grandmother,' added
Daisy eagerly.

220 GHETTO COMEDIES

' Then the child must remain with you at my
expense,' said the old lady.

' But if she likes the country so ' murmured

Natalya.

' 1 like you better, grandmother.' And Daisy laid
her ruddied cheek to the withered cheek, which grew
wet with ecstasy.

' She calls you " grandmother," not me,' said the
old gentlewoman with a sob.

' Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive
me!'

Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to
and fro, holding Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing
heart.

'What did you say ?' Daisy's grandmother flamed
and blazed with her ancient anger. ' You wished my
Madge dead ?'

Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their
hold of Daisy. ' Dead, dead, dead,' she repeated in a
strange, crooning voice. Gradually a vacant look crept
over her face, and she fell back again on the bed.
She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy
black wig.

' She is ill !' Daisy shrieked.

The cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back
between the sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy
in leaving her bed. Natalya lived till near noon of
the next day, and Daisy's real grandmother was with
her still at the end, side by side with the Jewish death-
watcher.

About eleven in the morning Natalya said : ' Light
the candles, Daisy, the Sabbath is coming in.' Daisy
spread a white tablecloth on the old wooden table,

THE BEARER OF BURDENS 221

placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the
bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with
curious unreality in the full August sunshine.

A holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face.
Her dried-up lips mumbled the Hebrew prayer,
welcoming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they grew
rigid in death.

' Daisy,' said her grandmother, * say the text I
taught you.'

' " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden," ' sobbed the child obediently, ' " and I will
give you rest."

THE LUFTMENSCH

THE LUFTMENSCH

LEOPOLD BARSTEIN, the sculptor, was sitting in his
lonesome studio, brooding blackly over his dead
illusions, when the postman brought him a letter in a
large, straggling, unknown hand. It began ' Angel of
God!'

He laughed bitterly. ' Just when I am at my
most diabolical !' He did not at first read the letter,
divining in it one of the many begging-letters which
were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist period.
But he turned over the page to see the name of the
Orientally effusive scribe. It was ' Nehemiah Silver-
mann, Dentist and Restaurateur.' His laughter changed
to a more genial note ; his sense of humour was still
saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist sprang to
his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand
the figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of
pincers. He read the letter.

'3A, THE MINORIES, E.
'ANGEL OF GOD,

' I have the honour now to ask Your very kind
humane merciful cordial nobility to assist me by
Your clement philanthropical liberal relief in my very

225 15

226 GHETTO COMEDIES

hard troublesome sorrows and worries, on which I
suffer violently. I lost all my fortune, and I am ruined
by Russia. I am here at present without means and
dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with
lack of a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really
what to do in my actual very disgraceful mischief. I
heard the people saying Your propitious magnanimous
beneficent charities are everywhere exceedingly well
renowned and considerably gracious. Thus I solicit
and supplicate Your good very kind genteel clement
humanity by my very humble quite instant request
to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to
respond me as soon as possible according to Your
generous very philanthropy in my urgent extreme
immense difficulty .

' Your obedient servant respectfully,

' NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
* Dentist and Restaurateur.''

Such a flood of language carried away the last rem-
nants of Barstein's melancholia ; he saw his imagined
statue showering adjectives from its cornucopia. ' It
is the cry of a dictionary in distress !' he murmured,
re-reading the letter with unction.

It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest
language. He asked for details of Silvermann's
circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to the
Russo- Jewish Fund, which existed to help such
refugees from persecution ? Did he know Jacobs, the
dentist of the neighbouring Mansel Place ?

Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors
in Zionism, a pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the
small back room, and the voluble little man now loomed

THE LUFTMENSCH

227

suddenly large as a possible authority upon his brother-
dentist.

By return of post a second eruption descended upon
the studio from the c dictionary in distress.'

'3A, THE MINORIES, E.

* MOST HONOURABLE AND ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD
BARSTEIN,

' I have the honour now to thank You for Your
kind answer of my letter. I did not succeed here by
my vital experience in the last of ten years. I got my
livelihood a certain time by my dental practice so long
there was not a hard violent competition, then I had
never any efficacious relief, protection, then I have no
relation, then we and the time are changeable too,
then without money is impossible to perform any
matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate
position £4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I
do not earn anything, and I must despond at last, I
perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me
in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had
£15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to
look for my daily bread, and if I had £30 so I shall
go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter
and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is
nothing to do any more for .me. I have not been in
the Russo- Jewish fund and do not know it where it is,
and if it is in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so
I have no protection, no introduction, no recom-
mendation for it. Poverty has very seldom a few
clement humane good people and little friends. The
people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not
a good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes the

15—2

228 GHETTO COMEDIES

impossible competition. I ask Your good genteel
cordial nobility according to the universal good reputa-
tion of Your gracious goodness to reply me quick by
some help now.

4 Your obedient Servant respectfully,
1 NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
4 Dentist and Restaurateur.'

This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon
the situation. Instead of being a victim of the
Russian troubles, a recent refugee from massacre and
robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London
for ten years, and although he might originally have
been ruined by Russia, he had survived his ruin by a
decade. His ideas of his future seemed as hazy as
his past. Four pounds would be a very present help ;
he could continue his London career. With fifteen
pounds he was ready to start off any whither. With
thirty pounds he would end all his troubles in
Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate
a personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in
bad form, Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage,
clapped on his hat, and repaired to the Minories.
But he looked in vain for either a dentist or a restaurant
at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence,
trying to edge itself into the important street. At
last, after wandering uncertainly up and down, he
knocked at the shabby door. A frowsy woman with
long earrings opened it staring, and said that the
Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.
4 What P cried Barstein. ' Is he married ?'
4 1 should hope so,' replied the landlady severely.
4 He has eleven children at least.'

THE LUFTMENSCH 229

Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and
was received by Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with
much consternation and ceremony. The family filled
the whole front room and overflowed into the back,
which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silver-
mann had rushed thence with tucked-up sleeves, and
sounds of frying still proceeded from it. But Mr.
Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded, bewigged
creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked
curiously round the room, half expecting indications of
dentistry or dining. But he saw only a minimum of
broken-down furniture, bottomless cane chairs, a
wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf
heaped with ragged books, and a standing cupboard
which obviously turned into a bedstead at night for
half the family. But of a dentist's chair there was not
even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-
backed books — some were indeed ' dictionaries in
distress.' He noted a Russo-German and a German-
English. Then the sounds of frying penetrated more
keenly to his brain.

' You are the cook of the restaurant ?' he inquired.

' Restaurant !' echoed the woman resentfully. ' Have
I not enough cooking to do for my own family ? And
where shall I find money to keep a restaurant ?'

' Your husband said ' murmured Barstein, as

in guilty confusion.

A squalling from the overflow offspring in the
kitchen drew off the mother for a moment, leaving
him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile mob. From
the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and
whimperings. Then the poor woman reappeared,
bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board. She placed

230 GHETTO COMEDIES

it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his
Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at
the school, she complained, otherwise her family would
be less numerous.

* Where does your husband do his dentistry ?'
Barstein inquired, seating himself cautiously upon
the board.

' Do I know ?' said his wife. ' He goes out, he comes
in.' At this moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction,
he did come in.

* Holy angel !' he cried, rushing at the hem of
Barstein's coat, and kissing it reverently. He was a
gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to over six feet,
and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of
the tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare
frockcoat of the longest possible tails. At his advent
his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded her flock into
the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone
with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing
at his visitor, positively soaring heavenwards with
rapture.

But Barstein inquired brutally : ' Where do you do
your dentistry ?J

1 Never mind me,5 replied Nehemiah ecstatically.
4 Let me look on you !' And a more passionate
worship came into his tranced gaze.

But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly : ' Where
do you do your dentistry ?'

The question seemed to take some moments pene-
trating through Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he
replied pathetically : ' And where shall I find achers ?
In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no
friends.'

THE LUFTMENSCH 231

The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein.
Evidently the dictionary was his fount of inspiration.
Without it Niagara was reduced to a trickle. He
seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze
with large liquid eyes.

' But you have managed to live here for ten years,'
Barstein pointed out.

4 You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah re joined
eagerly. ' Never once has He deserted me and my
children.'

' But what have you done ?' inquired Barstein.

The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's
eyes.

1 Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.

Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose
one's character as a holy angel. 'But your res-
taurant ?' he said. ' Where is that ?'

' That is here.'

' Here !' echoed Barstein, staring round again.

' Where else ? Here is a wide opening for a kosher
restaurant. There are hundreds and hundreds of
Greeners lodging all around — poor young men with
only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They
know not where to go to eat, and my wife, God be
thanked, is a knowing cook.'

1 Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'

' Naturally — a counsel that I have given myself.'

' But have you enough plates and dishes and table-
cloths ? Can you afford to buy the food, and to risk
it's not being eaten ?'

Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.

' Not being eaten ! With a family like mine !'

Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was

232 GHETTO COMEDIES

softened by noting how sensitive and artistic were
Nehemiah's outspread hands — they might well have
wielded the forceps. ' Yes, I dare say that is what will
happen,' he said. ' How can you keep a restaurant
up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever
see it ?' -

As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in
an hotel in Sicily which consisted entirely of one upper
room. Perhaps in the Ghetto Sicilian fashions were
paralleled.

' I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,'
Nehemiah explained. ' But here is this great empty
room. What am I to do with it ? At night of course
most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste.
Also I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a
week from my friends in Russia and America, and one
of which I even buy here. When I have read them
these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given
myself a counsel, if I would make here a reading-room
they should come in the evenings, many young men
who have only a bed or a room-corner to go to, and
when once they have learnt to come here it will then
be easy to make them to eat and drink. First I will
give to them only coffee and cigarettes, but afterwards
shall my wife cook them all the Delicatessen of Poland.
When our custom will become too large we shall take
over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the
Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the
option thereof ; it is only two hundred pounds. And
if your gentility '

' But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' inter-
rupted Barstein, alarmed.

'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,'

THE LUFTMENSCH 233

said Nehemiah reassuringly. ' From you I ask
nothing.'

1 In that case,' replied Barstein drily, ' I must say
I consider it an excellent plan. Your idea of building
up from small foundations is most sensible — some of
the young men may even have toothache — but I do
not see where you need me — unless to supply a few
papers.'

' Did I not say you were from heaven ?' Nehemiah's
eyes shone again. ' But I do not require the papers.
It is enough for me that your holy feet have stood in
my homestead. I thought you might send money.
But to come with your own feet ! Now I shall be able
to tell I have spoken with him face to face !'

Barstein was touched. ' I think you will need a
larger table for the reading-room,' he said.

The tall figure shook its tall hat. e It is only gas
that I need for my operations.'

c Gas !' repeated Barstein, astonished. ' Then you
propose to continue your dentistry too.'

1 It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated
Nehemiah. ' Unless there shall be a cheerful shining
here the young men will not come. But the penny
gas is all I need.'

4 Well, if it costs only a penny— -' began Barstein.

' A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. ' But
then there is the meter and the cost of the burners.'
He calculated that four pounds would convert the room
into a salon of light that would attract all the homeless
moths of the neighbourhood.

So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected
with his first sense of solid foothold. After all
Nehemiah had sustained his surprise visit fairly well —

234 GHETTO COMEDIES

he was obviously no Croesus — and if four pounds would
not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer
to the whole neighbourhood —

He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on
his watch-chain. It contained only three pounds ten.
He rummaged his pockets for silver, finding only eight
shillings.

'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he mur-
mured.

* As if I couldn't trust you !' cried Nehemiah re-
proachfully, and as he lifted his long coat-tails to
trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw that he had
no waistcoat.

II

About six months later, when Barstein had utterly
forgotten the episode, he received another letter whose
phraseology instantly recalled everything.

' To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Il-
lustrious Authority and Universal Celebrious
Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor.

'3A, THE MINORIES, E.
* DEAR SIR,

* I have the honour and pleasure now to render
the real and sincere gratitude of my very much obliged
thanks for Your grand gracious clement sympathical
propitious merciful liberal compassionable cordial
nobility of your real humane generous benevolent
genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which
afforded to me a great redemption of my very lament-
able desperate necessitous need, wherein I am at

THE LUFTMENSCH 235

present very poor indeed in my total ruination by
the cruel cynical Russia, therein is every day a
daily tyrannous massacre and assassinate, here is
nothing to do any more for me previously, I shall
rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from
Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently
£4 the same was for me a momental recreateing aid
in my actual very indigent paltry miserable calamitous
situation wherein I gain now nothing and I only perish
here. Even I cannot earn here my daily bread by
my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse languages,
I know the philological neology and archaiology, the
best way is for me to go to another country to wit,
to Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate
Your charitable generosity by my very humble and
instant request to make me go away from here as
soon as possible according to Your humane kind
merciful clemency.

' Your obedient Servant respectfully,

' NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
' Dentist and Professor of Languages.9

So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the
gas, not a restaurant. Anyhow the dictionary was in
distress again. Emigration appeared now the only
salvation.

But where in the world was Bursia ? Possibly
Persia was meant. But why Persia ? Wherein lay
the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever
would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny
do in Persia ? Nehemiah's original suggestion of
Jerusalem had been much more intelligible. Perhaps
it persisted still under the head of Turkey. Not

236 GHETTO COMEDIES

least characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious
gloating over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.

For some days the sculptor went about weighed
down by Nehemiah's misfortunes, and the necessity
of finding time to journey to the Minories. But he
had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could
tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower
of words fell upon him.

1 3A, THE MINORIES, E.

{ I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, ' to
inquire about my decided and expecting departure.
I must sue by my quite humble and very instant
entreaty Your noble genteel cordial humanity in my
very hard troublous and bitter and sour vexations
and tribulations to effect for my poor position at
least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon
as possible according to Your clement magnanimous
charitable mercy of £15 if not £25 among Your very
estimable and respectfully good friends, in good order
to go in another country even Bursia to get my
livelihood by my dental practice or by my other
scientifick and philological knowledge. The great
competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have
here no dental employment, no dental practice, no
relations, no relief, no gain, no earning, no intro-
duction, no protection, no recommendation, no money,
no good friends, no good connecting acquaintance, in
Russia I am ruined and I perish here, I am already
desperate and despond entirely. I do not know what
to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual urgent,
extreme immense need. I am told by good many
people, that the board of guardians is very seldom to

THE LUFTMENSCH 237

rescue by aid the people, but very often is to find
only faults, and vices and to make them guilty. I
have nothing to do there, and in the russian Jewish
fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and he
is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit con-
siderably Your kind humane clement mercy to answer
me as soon as possible quick according to Your very
gracious mercy.

' Your obedient Servant respectfully,

' NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
' Dentist and Professor of Languages.7

As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein
summoned a hansom and sped to the Minories.

Ill

Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning
the door-handle he saw the top-hatted figure sprawled
in solitary gloom along a caneless chair, reading a
newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah
sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic
shadow bow to the visitor. From chimney-pot to
coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the same
celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.

But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the
attempted kiss.

' Where is the gas ?' he asked drily.

' Alas, the company removed the meter.5

' But the gas-brackets ?'

' What else had we to eat ?' said Nehemiah simply.

Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the

238 GHETTO COMEDIES

ceiling. But a fragment of gaspipe certainly came
through it. He could not, however, recall whether
the pipe had been there before or not.

' So the young men would not come ?' he said.

4 Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate.
Only they did not pay.'

' You should have made it a rule — cash down.'

Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment
crossed his lean and melancholy visage.

' And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel ? Where
had those young men to turn but to me ?'

Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled.
He hastened to change the conversation.

* And why do you want to go to Bursia ?' he said.

1 Why shall I want to go to Bursia ?' Nehemiah
replied.

* You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.

4 Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to
Russia. Always Sir Asher Aaronsberg speaks of
sending us back to Russia.'

' He would,' said Barstein grimly. ' But where is
Bursia ?'

Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. ' Shall I know ?
My little Rebeccah was drawing a map thereof ; she
won a prize of five pounds with which we lived two
months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'

1 Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'

' And do I not trust Him ?' said Nehemiah fervently.
* Otherwise, burdened down as I am with a multitude
of children '

* You made your own burden,' Barstein could not
help pointing out.

Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had

THE LUFTMENSCH 239

caught sight of feet of clay beneath Barstein's shining
boots.

' " Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"
Nehemiah quoted in Hebrew. ' Is not that the very
first commandment in the Bible ?'

'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the
sculptor evasively. ' I suppose you mean Palestine ?'

' No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should
ought to go, there to work for Palestine. Are not
many of the Sultan's own officials Jews ? If we can
make of them hot-hearted Zionists '

It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found
himself sitting on the table to discuss it. The reverence
with which Nehemiah listened to his views was touching
and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the
celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror.
Yet he could not suspect the man of a glozing tongue,
for of the leaders of Zionism Nehemiah spoke with,
if possible, greater veneration, with an awe trembling
on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his
lean visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the
conquest of Palestine, and Barstein's original impression
of his simple sincerity was repeated and re-enforced.

Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that
Nehemiah himself would have scant opportunity of
influential contact with Ottoman officials, and that the
real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his wife,
and his ' at least eleven children,' were to be supported
in Turkey. He mentioned the point.

Nehemiah waved it away. ' And cannot the
Almighty support us in Turkey as well as in England ?'
he asked. * Yes, even in Bursia itself the Guardian of
Israel is not sleepy.'

240 GHETTO COMEDIES

It was then that the word ' Luftmensch ' flew into
Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man in
gross contact with solidities. He was an air-man,
floating on facile wings through the aether. True, he
spoke of troublesome tribulations, but these were
mainly dictionary distresses, felt most keenly in the
rhapsody of literary composition. At worst they
were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in
common with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven
from his own vision. Never for a moment had
Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had he
lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was
merely optimism in disguise, since it was only a
personal pessimism to be remedied by ' a few frivolous
pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence,
not that impersonal despair of the scheme of things
which gave the thinker such black moments. How
had Nehemiah lived during those first ten years in
England ? Who should say ? But he had had the
wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's
home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore,
and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse,
through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond
calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness,
he had scraped through the days and the weeks and
the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more im-
portant items to posterity than the dead stones,
which were all he, the sculptor, bade fair to leave
behind him. Welcoming each new child with feasting
and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah
lost his robustious faith in life, his belief in God,
man, or himself.

Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his

THE LUFTMENSCH 241

respect for others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived
surrounded by a radiant humanity, by men become as
Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he address
one as ' Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his
pole-stars. And what airy courage in his mundane
affairs, what invincible resilience ! He had once been
a dentist, and he still considered himself one. Before
he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the proprietor
of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of
anticipation and of memory, and having nothing,
glided ever buoyantly between two gilded horizons.
The superficial might call him shiftless, but more
profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education
in the art of living ? Did he not incarnate the great
Jewish gospel of the improvident lilies ?

* You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a
burst of artistic fervour. ' Thirteen people cannot
possibly get there for fifteen pounds or even twenty-
five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a
small business here.'

Nehemiah stared at him. ' God's messenger !' was
all he could gasp. Then the tall melancholy man
raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a Hebrew
voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns
were caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were
distinctly audible.

Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at
rest.

' But what business do you think you ?' he

began.

' Shall I presume dictation to the angel ?' asked
Nehemiah with wet shining eyes.

* I am thinking that perhaps we might find something

242 GHETTO COMEDIES

in which your children could help you. How old is
the eldest ?'

' I will ask my wife. Salome !' he cried. The
dismal creature trotted in.

' How old is Moshele ?' he asked.

4 And don't you remember he was twelve last
Tabernacles ?'

Nehemiah threw up his long arms. * Merciful
Heaven ! He must soon begin to learn his Parshah
(confirmation portion). What will it be ? Where is
my Chumash (Pentateuch) ?' Mrs. Silvermann drew
it down from the row of ragged books, and Nehemiah,
fluttering the pages and bending over the rushlight,
became lost to the problem of his future.

Barstein addressed himself to the wife. ' What
business do you think your husband could set up
here ?'

' Is he not a dentist ?' she inquired in reply.

Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.

' Would you like to be a dentist again ?'

' Ah, but how shall I find achers ?'

' You put up a sign,' said Barstein. ' One of those
cases of teeth. I daresay the landlady will permit you
to put it up by the front door, especially if you take
an extra room. I will buy you the instruments,
furnish the room attractively. You will put in your
newspapers — why, people will be glad to come as to a
reading-room !' he added smiling.

Nehemiah addressed his wife. ' Did I not say he
was a genteel archangel ?' he cried ecstatically.

THE LUFTMENSCH

243

IV

Barstein was sitting outside a cafe in Rome sipping
vermouth with Rozenoffski, the Russo- Jewish pianist,
and Schneemann the Galician- Jewish painter, when
he next heard from Nehemiah.

He was anxiously expecting an important letter,
which he had instructed his studio-assistant to bring
to him instantly. So when the man appeared, he
seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand.
But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his
hope, and recalled the forgotten Luftmensch. He
threw the letter impatiently on the table.

4 Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, mis-
understanding.

' I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here,
in this classical atmosphere, in this southern sunshine,
he felt out of sympathy with the gaunt godly
Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his
truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for
the ne'er-do-well ! Let his Providence look after him !

' Is she beautiful ?' quizzed Schneemann.

Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was
broken up. Nehemiah as a petticoated romance was
too tickling.

' You shall read the letter,' he said.

Schneemann protested comically. ' No, no, that
would be ungentlemanly — you read to us what the
angel says.'

' It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he
tore open the letter. He read it aloud, breaking down
in almost hysterical laughter at each eruption of

16 — 2

244 GHETTO COMEDIES

adjectives from ' the dictionary in distress.' Rozenoffski
and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and
the Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely
ignorant of the motive of the merriment, caught the
contagion, and rocked and shrieked with the mad
foreigners.

1 3A, THE MINORIES, E.

' RIGHT HONOURABLE ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD
BARSTEIN,

* I have now the honour to again solicit Your
genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic
kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by Your
merciful loan of gracious second and propitious
favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent
position in which I have no earn by my dental practice
likewise no help, also no protection, no recommenda-
tion, no employment, and then the competition is here
very violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have
nothing for the celebration of our Jewish new year.
Consequentially upon your merciful archangelical dona-
tive I was able to make my livelihood by my dental
practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital
subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the
little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are
now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I
implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted
liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond
me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according
to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenuous
genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.
' Your obedient servant respectfully,

' NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
* Dentist and Professor of Languages'

THE LUFTMENSCH 245

But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's
comment was unexpected.

' Rosh Hashanah so near ?' he said.

A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three
artists as they tried to work out the date of the Jewish
New Year, that solemn period of earthly trumpets and
celestial judgments.

'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski sud-
denly. The trio looked at one another with rueful
humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even realize
such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily
decreeing their life-or-death sentences !

Barstein raised his glass. ' Here's a happy new
year, anyhow !' he said.

The three men clinked glasses.

Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.

' Send that to the poor devil,' he said.

' Oho !' laughed Schneemann. ' You still believe
"Charity delivers from death!" Well, I must be
saved too !' And he threw down another hundred-lire
note.

To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if an
old superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann's
laughter as behind Rozenoff ski's donation.

' You will only make the Luftmensch believe still
more obstinately in his Providence,' he said, as he
gathered up the New Year gifts. ' Again will he declare
that he has been accorded a good writing and a good
sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal P

' Well, hasn't he ?' laughed Schneemann.

* Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. ' Qui
sa?'

THE TUG OF LOVE

THE TUG OF LOVE

WHEN Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter,
betrothed himself to Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of
the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the match, always
excepting Sugarman the Shadchan (whom love matches
shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered
Fanny flighty and fond of finery).

' That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's
wife,' insisted Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.

* He who marries Fanny *s rich,' retorted Elias.

' " Pawn your hide, but get a bride," ' quoted the
old lady savagely.

As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated
almost like a relative.

' But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias
protested.

' A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,'
replied Sugarman indignantly.

But Elias was quite content with his own arrange-
ment, for Fanny's glance was melting and her touch
transporting. To deck that soft warm hand with an
engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed
disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond
bewitchingly. It lit up the gloomy workshop with
its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch, bent over his

249

250 GHETTO COMEDIES

press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's
badinage.

The course of true love seemed to run straight to
the Canopy — Fanny had already worked the bride-
groom's praying shawl — when suddenly a storm broke.
At first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand —
in fact, it was a man's hand. Elias espied it groping
for Fanny's in the dim space between the two machines.
As Fanny's fingers fluttered towards it, her other hand
still guiding the cloth under the throbbing needle,
Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down,
through and through. The very finger that held his
costly ring lay in this alien paw gratis.

The shameless minx ! Ah, his relatives were right.
He snapped the scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw.

' Fanny, what dost thou ?' he gasped in Yiddish.

Fanny's face flamed ; her guilty fingers flew back.

' I thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed.

Elias snorted incredulously.

As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the
engagement he flew to Elias, his blue bandanna stream-
ing from his coat-tail.

' If you had come to me,' he crowed, ' I should have
found you a more reliable article. However, Heaven
has given you a second helping. A well-built wage-
earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's
daughter even.'

4 1 never wish to look upon a woman again,' Elias
groaned.

' Schtuss !' said the great marriage-broker. ' Three
days after the Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of
Tabernacles. The Almighty, blessed be He, who
created both light and darkness, has made obedient

THE TUG OF LOVE 251

females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' And he
blew his nose emphatically into his bandanna.

' Yes ; but she won't return me my ring,' Elias
lamented.

' What !' Sugarman gasped. ' Then she considers
herself still engaged to you.'

4 Not at all. She laughs in my face.'

' And she has given you back your promise ?'

* My promise — yes. The ring — no.'

' But on what ground ?'

' She says I gave it to her.'

Sugarman clucked his tongue. ' Tututu ! Better
if we had followed our old custom, and the man had
worn the engagement-ring, not the woman !'

' In the workshop,' Elias went on miserably, ' she
flashes it in my eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh,
the Jezebel !'

' I should summons her !'

' It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave
her the ring ?'

Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience
was at fault. No maiden had ever refused to return
his client's ring ; rather had she flung it in the wooer's
false teeth.

' This comes of your love matches !' he cried sternly.
' Next time there must be a proper contract.'

' Next time !' repeated Elias. ' Why how am I to
afford a new ring ? Fanny was ruinous in cups of
chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre !'

4 1 should want my fee down !' said Sugarman
sharply .

Elias shrugged his shoulders. ' If you bring me the
ring.'

252 GHETTO COMEDIES

' I do not get old rings but new maidens,' Sugarman
reminded him haughtily. * However, as you are a

customer ' and crying ' Five per cent, on the

greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere Elias had
time to dissent from the bargain.

Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts,
Sugarman ploughed his way up the dark staircase to
their room. His attire was wasted on the family, for
Fanny herself opened the door.

' Peace to you,' he cried. ' I have come on behalf
of Elias Goldenberg.'

' It is useless. I will not have him.' And she was
shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not,
scattered all Sugarman's prepared diplomacies. ' He
does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried hastily.

Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The
diamond glittered mockingly on it. Then she turned
away giggling. * But look at this photograph !' panted
Sugarman desperately through the closing door.

Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She
stared at the sheepish features of a frock-coated
stranger.

' Four pounds a week all the year round, head
cutter at S. Cohn's,' said Sugarman, pursuing this
advantage. ' A good old English family ; Benjamin
Beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into
Elias's shoes.'

c His feet are too large !' And she flicked the
photograph floorwards with her bediamonded finger.

' But why waste the engagement-ring ?' pleaded
Sugarman, stooping to pick up the suitor.

' What an idea ! A new man, a new ring !' And
Fanny slammed the door.

THE TUG OF LOVE 253

' Impudence-face ! Would you become a jewellery
shop ?' the baffled Shadchan shrieked through the
woodwork.

He returned to Elias, brooding darkly.

1 Well ?' queried Elias.

* O, your love matches !' And Sugarman shook
them away with shuddersome palms.

1 Then she won't '

* No, she won't. Ah, how blessed you are to escape
from that daughter of Satan ! The greengrocer's
daughter now '

* Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.'
' 1 will get you one on the hire system.'

* A maiden ?'

' Guard your tongue ! A ring, of course.'

Elias shook an obdurate head. ; No. I must have

the old ring back.'

' That is impossible — unless you marry her to get

it back. Stay ! Why should I not arrange that for

you ?'

' Leave me in peace ! Heaven has opened my eyes.'
' Then see how economical she is !' urged Sugarman.

* A maiden who sticks to a ring like that is not likely
to be wasteful of your substance.'

* You have not seen her swallow " stuffed monkeys,"'
said Elias grimly. c Make an end ! I have done with
her.'

' No, you have not ! You can still give yourself a
counsel.' And Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx.

* You may yet get back the ring.'

' How ?'

' Of course, I have the next disposal of it ?' said
Sugarman.

254 GHETTO COMEDIES

4 Yes, yes. Go on.'

4 To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal
loving glances all day long when she's not looking.
When she catches you- '

* But she won't be looking !'

4 Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you
must blush.'

4 But I can't blush at will,' Elias protested.

4 1 know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will
be easier for you.'

4 But why shall I look foolish ?'

4 To make her think you are in love with her after all.'

4 1 should look foolish if I were.'

4 Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves
the workshop in the evening follow her, and as she
passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her if she will not
eat a " stuffed monkey " for the sake of peace-be-upon-
him times.'

4 But she won't.'

4 Why not ? She is stiU in love.'

4 With stuffed monkeys,' said Elias cynically.

4 With you, too.'

Elias blushed quite easily. 4 How do you know ?'

4 1 offered her another man, and she slammed the
door in my face !'

4 You — you offered ' Elias stuttered angrily.

4 Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He
continued : 4 Now, when she has eaten the cake and
drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must play high
with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her
side, and when you come to a dark corner, take her
hand and say 44 My treasure " or " My angel," or what-
ever nonsense you modern young men babble to your

THE TUG OF LOVE 255

maidens — with the results you see ! — and while she
is drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in
yours, give a sudden tug, and off comes the ring !'

Elias gazed at him in admiration. ' You are as
crafty as Jacob, our father.'

' Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied
Sugarman modestly. ' Be careful to seize the left
hand.'

The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the
letter.

Even the blush he had boggled at came to his
cheeks punctually whenever his sheep's-eyes met
Fanny's. He was so surprised to find his face burning
that he looked foolish into the bargain.

They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to
summon up courage for the final feint. He would get
a good grip on the ring finger. The tug-of-war should
be brief.

Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and
smiled into each other's eyes.

* The good-for-nothing !' thought Elias hotly. ' She
will make the same eyes at the next man.'

And he went on gorging her, every speculative
* stuffed monkey ' increasing his nervous tension. Her
white teeth, biting recklessly intc the cake, made
him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery palled
at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed,
chattering with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew
up even with her.

They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley,
lit by one dull gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble
with the excitement of the critical moment. He felt
like a footpad. Hither and thither he peered — nobody

256

GHETTO COMEDIES

was about. But — was he on the right side of her ?
* The right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile,
but his pulses thumped, and in the tumult of heart
and brain he was not sure he knew her right hand
from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of
the diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber
hand closed upon it.

But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those
soft fingers, that ancient delicious thrill pierced every
vein. Fool that he had been to doubt that dear
hand ! And it was wearing his ring still — she could
not part with it ! O blundering male ingrate !

' My treasure ! My angel !' he murmured ecstati-
cally.

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'

THE little poet sat in the East-side cafe looking six
feet high. Melchitsedek Pinchas — by dint of a five-
pound note from Sir Asher Aaronsberg in acknowledge-
ment of the dedication to him of the poet's c Songs of
Zion' — had carried his genius to the great new Jewry
across the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York
only that very March, and already a crowd of votaries
hung upon his lips and paid for all that entered them.
Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is
nowhere without honour save in his own country.
The play that had vainly plucked at the stage-doors
of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe had already been
accepted by the leading Yiddish theatre of New York.
At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each
claiming this supreme position, but the poet felt that
the production of his play at Goldwater's Theatre
settled the question among them.

' It is the greatest play of the generation,' he
told the young socialists and free-thinkers who sat
around him this Friday evening imbibing chocolate.
' It will be translated into every tongue.' He had
passed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction

259 17—2

26o GHETTO COMEDIES

with the Ghetto triumph into cosmopolitan anticipa-
tions. ' See,' he added, ' my initials make M.P. —
Master Playwright.'

4 Also Mud Pusher,' murmured from the next table
Ostrovsky, the socialist leader, who found himself
almost deserted for the new lion. ' Who is this un-
combed bunco-steerer ?'

4 He calls himself the " sweet singer in Israel," '
contemptuously replied Ostrovsky's remaining para-
site.

' But look here, Pinchas,' interposed Benjamin
Tuch, another of the displaced demigods, a politician
with a delusion that he swayed Presidential elections
by his prestige in Brooklyn. c You said the other
day that your initials made " Messianic Poet."

' And don't they ?' inquired the poet, his Dantesque,
if dingy, face flushing spiritedly. ' You call yourself a
leader, and you don't know your ABC!'

There was a laugh, and Benjamin Tuch scowled.

4 They can't stand for everything,' he said.

'No— they can't stand for "Bowery Tough,'"
admitted Pinchas ; and the table roared again, partly
at the rapidity with which this linguistic genius had
picked up the local slang. ' But as our pious lunatics
think there are many meanings in every letter of the
Torah,' went on the pleased poet, ' so there are
meanings innumerable in every letter of my name. If
I am playwright as well as poet, was not Shakespeare
both also ?'

' You wouldn't class yourself with a low-down barn-
stormer like Shakespeare ?' said Tuch sarcastically.

' My superiority to Shakespeare I leave to others
to discover,' replied the poet seriously, and with

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET1 261

unexpected modesty. ' I discovered it for myself in
writing this very play ; but I cannot expect the world
to admit it till the play is produced.'

' How did you come to find it out yourself ?' asked
Witberg, the young violinist, who was never sure
whether he was guying the poet or sitting at his feet.

' It happened most naturally — order me another
cup of chocolate, Witberg. You see, when Iselmann
was touring with his Yiddish troupe through Galicia,
he had the idea of acquainting the Jewish masses with
" Hamlet," and he asked me to make the Yiddish
translation, as one great poet translating another —
and some of those almond-cakes, Witberg ! Well, I
started on the job, and then of course the discovery
was inevitable. The play, which I had not read since
my youth, and then only in a mediocre Hebrew
version, appeared unspeakably childish in places.
Take, for example, the Ghost — these almond-cakes
are as stale as sermons ; command me a cream-tart,
Witberg. What was I saying ?'

4 The Ghost/ murmured a dozen voices.

' Ah, yes — now, how can a ghost affect a modern
audience which no longer believes in ghosts ?'

' That is true.' The table was visibly stimulated,
as though the chocolate had turned into champagne.
The word ' modern ' stirred the souls of these refugees
from the old Ghettos like a trumpet ; unbelief, if only
in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition
of three thousand years. The poet perceived his
moment. He laid a black-nailed finger impressively
on the right side of his nose.

' I translated Shakespeare— yes, but into modern
terms. The Ghost vanished — Hamlet's tragedy re-

262 GHETTO COMEDIES

mained only the internal incapacity of the thinker for
the lower activity of action.'

The men of action pricked up their ears.

' The higher activity, you mean,' corrected
Ostrovsky.

' Thought,' said Benjamin Tuch, ' has no value till
it is translated into action.'

' Exactly ; you've got to work it up,' said Colonel
Klopsky, who had large ranching and mining interests
out West, and, with his florid personality, looked
entirely out of place in these old haunts of his.

' Schtuss (nonsense) !' said the poet disrespectfully.
c Acts are only soldiers. Thought is the general.'

Witberg demurred. ' It isn't much use thinking
about playing the violin, Pinchas.'

' My friend,' said the poet, ' the thinker in music is
the man who writes your solos. His thoughts exist
whether you play them or not — and independently of
your false notes. But you performers are all alike — I
have no doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet
will imagine his is the higher activity. But woe be to
those fellows if they change a syllable !'

' Your Hamlet ?' sneered Ostrovsky. ' Since
when ?'

' Since I re-created him for the modern world, without
tinsel and pasteboard ; since I conceived him in fire
and bore him in agony ; since — even the cream of this
tart is sour — since I carried him to and fro in my
pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch
of the mother.'

' Then Iselmann did not produce it ?' asked the
Heathen Journalist, who haunted the East Side for
copy, and pronounced Pinchas ' Pin-cuss.'

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET1 263

' No, I changed his name to Eselmann, the Donkey-
man. For I had hardly read him ten lines before he
brayed out, " Where is the Ghost ?" " The Ghost ?"
I said. " I have laid him. He cannot walk on the
modern stage." Eselmann tore his hair. " But it is
for the Ghost I had him translated. Our Yiddish
audiences love a ghost." " They love your acting,
too," I replied witheringly. " But I am not here to
consider the tastes of the mob." Oh, I gave the
Donkey-man a piece of my mind.'

4 But he didn't take the piece !' jested Grunbitz,
who in Poland had been a Badchan (marriage- jester),
and was now a Zionist editor.

' Bah ! These managers are all men-of-the-earth !
Once, in my days of obscurity, I was made to put a
besom into the piece, and it swept all my genius off
the boards. Ah, the donkey-men ! But I am glad
Eselmann gave me my " Hamlet " back, for before
giving it to Goldwater I made it even more subtle.
No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the end —
a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts.
No — this cream is just as sour as the other — my play
will be the internal tragedy of the thinker.'

' The internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,'
laughed the ex-Badchan ; l you'd better be more careful
with the cream-tarts.'

The Heathen Journalist broke through the laughter.
* Strikes me, Pin-cuss, you're giving us Hamlet without
the Prince of Denmark.'

* Better than the Prince of Denmark without
Hamlet,' retorted the poet, cramming cream-tart down
his throat in great ugly mouthfuls ; ' that is how he is
usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark

264 GHETTO COMEDIES

indeed vanishes, for Hamlet is a Hebrew and the Prince
of Palestine.'

' You have made him a Hebrew ?' cried Mieses, a
pimply young poet.

* If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to
the nation of thinkers,' said Pinchas. ' In fact, the
play is virtually an autobiography.'

' And do you call it " Hamlet " still ?' asked the
Heathen Journalist, producing his notebook, for he
began to see his way to a Sunday scoop.

' Why not ? True, it is virtually a new work. But
Shakespeare borrowed his story from an old play
called " Hamlet," and treated it to suit himself ; why,
therefore, should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits me.
The cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.' He
laughed his sniggering laugh. ' If I were to call it by
another name, some learned fool would point out it
was stolen from Shakespeare, whereas at present it
challenges comparison.'

' But you discovered Shakespeare cannot sustain the
comparison,' said Benjamin Tuch, winking at the
company.

' Only as the mediaeval astrologer is inferior to
the astronomer of to-day,' the poet explained with
placid modesty. * The muddle-headedness of Shake-
speare's ideas — which, incidentally, is the cause of the
muddle of Hamlet's character — has given way to the
clear vision of the modern. How could Shakespeare
really describe the thinker ? The Elizabethans could
not think. They were like our rabbis.'

The unexpected digression into contemporary satire
made the whole cafe laugh. Gradually other atoms
had drifted toward the new magnet. From the

L^J

THE YIDDISH ' HAMLET' 265

remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up.
Pinchas was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody
else's frock-coat on his meagre person, his hair flowing
like a dark cascade under a broad-brimmed dusky hat,
and his sombre face aglow with genius and cocksureness.

* Why should you expect thought from a rabbi ?'
said Grunbitz. ' You don't expect truth from a
tradesman. Besides, only youth thinks.'

4 That is well said,' approved Pinchas. ' He who
is ever thinking never grows old. I shall die young,
like all whom the gods love. Waiter, give Mr.
Grunbitz a cup of chocolate.'

' Thank you — but I don't care for any.'

' You cannot refuse — you will pain Witberg,' said
the poet simply.

In the great city around them men jumped on and off
electric cars, whizzed up and down lifts, hustled
through lobbies, hulloed through telephones, tore open
telegrams, dictated to clacking typists, filled life with
sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and
the chink of the eternal dollar ; while here, serenely
smoking and sipping, ruffled only by the breezes of
argument, leisurely as the philosophers in the colon-
nades of Athens, the talkers of the Ghetto, earnest as
their forefathers before the great folios of the Talmud,
made an Oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the
Occident. And the Heathen Journalist who had
discovered it felt, as so often before, that here alone in
this arid, mushroom New York was antiquity, was
restfulness, was romanticism ; here was the Latin
Quarter of the city of the Goths.

Encouraged by the Master's good humour, young
Mieses timidly exhibited his new verses. Pinchas read

266 GHETTO COMEDIES

the manuscript aloud to the confusion of the blushing
boy.

' But it is full of genius !' he cried in genuine astonish-
ment. ' I might have written it myself, except that
it is so unequal — a mixture of diamonds and paste,
like all Hebrew literature.' He indicated with flawless
taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all
unconscious reproductions from the English master-
pieces Mieses had borrowed from the library in the
Educational Alliance. The acolytes listened respect-
fully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced Mieses began to
take importance in their eyes and to betray the
importance he held in his own.

' Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day,' he said.
' My " M," too, makes " Master." '

' It may be that you are destined to wear my
mantle,' said Pinchas graciously.

Mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock-
coat.

Pinchas rose. ' And now, Mieses, you must give
me a car-fare. I have to go and talk to the manager
about rehearsals. One must superintend the actors
one's self — these pumpkin-heads are capable of any
crime, even of altering one's best phrases.'

Radsikoff smiled. He had sat still in his corner,
this most prolific of Ghetto dramatists, his big, fur-
rowed forehead supported on his fist, a huge, odorous
cigar in his mouth.

' I suppose Goldwater plays " Hamlet," ' he said.

' We have not discussed it yet,' said Pinchas airily.

Radsikoff smiled again. ' Oh, he'll pull through
— so long as Mrs. Goldwater doesn't play " Ophelia."

' She play " Ophelia " ! She would not dream of

THE YIDDISH ' HAMLET1 267

such a thing. She is a saucy soubrette ; she belongs to
vaudeville.'

' All right. I have warned you.'

4 You don't think there is really a danger !' Pinchas
was pale and shaking.

' The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and
wives, unfortunately, live and play together,' said the
old dramatist drily.

' I'll drown her truly before I let her play my
" Ophelia," ' said the poet venomously.

Radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into
American. ' Well, it's up to you.'

4 The minx !' Pinchas shook his fist at the air.

* But I'll manage her. If the worst comes to the
worst, I'll make love to her.'

The poet's sublime confidence in his charms was
too much even for his admirers. The mental juxta-
position of the seedy poet and the piquant actress in
her frills and furbelows set the whole cafe rocking with
laughter. Pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious
method of drawing the soubrette-serpent's fangs. He
grinned placidly.

' And when is your play coming on ?' asked
Radsikoff.

' After Passover,' replied Pinchas, beginning to
button his frock-coat against the outer cold. If only
to oust this ' Ophelia,' he must be at the theatre
instanter.

' Has Goldwater given you a contract ?'

' I am a poet, not a lawyer,' said Pinchas proudly.

* Parchments are for Philistines ; honest men build on
the word.'

' After all, it comes to the same thing — with Gold-

268 GHETTO COMEDIES

water,' said Radsikoff drily. ' But he's no worse than
the others ; I've never yet found the contract any
manager couldn't slip out of. I've never yet met
the playwright that the manager couldn't dodge.'
Radsikoff, indeed, divided his time between devising
plays and devising contracts. Every experience but
suggested fresh clauses. He regarded Pinchas with
commiseration rather than jealousy. ' I shall come
to your first night,' he added.

' It will be a tribute which the audience will appre-
ciate,' said Pinchas. ' I am thinking that if I had one
of these aromatic cigars I too might offer a burnt-
offering unto the Lord.'

There was general laughter at the blasphemy, for
the Sabbath, with its privation of fire, had long since
begun.

' Try taking instead of thinking,' laughed the
playwright, pushing forward his case. ' Action is
greater than Thought.'

' No, no, no !' Pinchas protested, as he fumbled for
the finest cigar. ' Wait till you see my play — you
must all come — I will send you all boxes. Then you
will learn that Thought is greater than Action — that
Thought is the greatest thing in the world.'

II

Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas
plunged from the steam-heated, cheerful cafe into the
raw, unlovely street, still hummocked with an ancient,
uncleared snowfall. He did not take the horse-car
which runs in this quarter ; he was reserving the

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 269

five cents for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was
slow, for a side street that he had to pass through was,
like nearly all the side streets of the great city, an
abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of frozen,
dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and
scarcely by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane ; an
alpenstock would not have been superfluous. But the
theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flam-
boyant posters restored his spirits ; the curtain was
already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof
to floor. Rebuffed by the janitors, Pinchas haughtily
asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on the stage, and
could not see him. But nothing could down the poet,
whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery.
This great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to
melt and fire.

* I will await him in a box,' he said.

* There's no room,' said the usher.

Pinchas threw up his head. ' I am the author of
" Hamlet " !'

The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had
heard vaguely of ' Hamlet ' — as a great play that was
acted on Broadway. And now here was the author
himself ! All the instinctive snobbery of the Ghetto
toward the grand world was excited. And yet this
seedy figure conflicted painfully with his ideas of the
uptown type. But perhaps all dramatists were alike.
Pinchas was bowed forward.

In another instant the theatre was in an uproar.
A man in a comfortable fauteuil had been asked to
accommodate the distinguished stranger and had
refused.

4 1 pay my dollar — what for shall I go ?

270 GHETTO COMEDIES

' But it is the author of " Hamlet " !'

' My money is as good as his.'

' But he doesn't pay.'

4 And I shall give my good seat to a Schnorrer /'

' Sh ! sh !' from all parts of the house, like water
livening, not killing, a flame. From every side came
expostulations in Yiddish and American. This was a
fee republic ; the author of ' Hamlet ' was no better
than anybody else. Goldwater, on the stage, glared
at the little poet.

At last a compromise was found. A chair was
placed at the back of a packed box. American boxes
are constructed for publicity, not privacy, but the
other dozen occupants bulked between him and the
house. He could see, but he could not be seen. Sullen
and mortified he listened contemptuously to the play.

It was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic
drama with which the vast audience had replaced the
Sabbath pieties, the home-keeping ritual of the
Ghetto, in their swift transformation to American life.
Confined entirely to Jewish characters, it had borrowed
much from the heroes and heroines of the Western
world, remaining psychologically true only in its
minor characters, which were conceived and rendered
with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. And
this naturalism was shot through with streaks of pure
fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly bounded on in
a masque for the edification of a Russian tyrant.
But comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to
horror and tragedy : these refugees from the brutality
of Russia and Rumania, these inheritors of the wailing
melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved morbidly
for gruesomeness and gore. The ' happy endings ' of

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 271

Broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here.
Players and audience made a large family party — the
unfailing result of a stable stock company with the
parts always cast in the same mould. And it was
almost an impromptu performance. Pinchas, from
his proximity to the stage, could hear every word
from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of
the footlights. The Yiddish prompter did not wait
till the players ' dried up ' ; it was his role to read
the whole play ahead of them. ' Then you are the
woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble.
And the actor, hearing, invented immediately the fit
attitude and emphasis, spinning out with elocutionary
slowness and passion the raw material supplied to
him. No mechanical crossing and recrossing the
stage, no punctilious tuition by your stage-manager —
all was inspiration and fire. But to Pinchas this
hearing of the play twice over — once raw and once
cooked — was maddening.

' The lazy-bones !' he murmured. ' Not thus shall
they treat my lines. Every syllable must be engraved
upon their hearts, or I forbid the curtain to go up.
Not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's words ;
they are ink-vomit, not literature.'

Another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his
literary instinct. Incongruously blended with the
Yiddish were elementary American expressions — the
first the immigrants would pick up. ' All right,'
' Sure !' * Yes, sir,' ' Say, how's the boss ?' ' Good-
bye.' ' Not a cent.' ' Take the elevated.' ' Yup.'
* Nup.' * That's one on you !' ' Rubber-neck !' A
continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and
flattered the audience, pleased to find themselves on

272 GHETTO COMEDIES

such easy terms with the new language. But to
Pinchas the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with
such locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine
talking with a twang — how could he permit such an
outrage upon his Hebrew Hamlet ?

Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he
darted through the iron door that led from the rear
of the box to the stage, jostling the cursing carpenters,
and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on
whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a con-
tinuous roar. At last he found himself in the little
bureau and dressing-room in which Goldwater was
angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the actor-
manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat
on the table beside the telephone, a peaked cap on
his head, his legs swinging.

' Son of a witch ! You come and disturb all my
house. What do you want ?' cried Goldwater.

' I want to talk to you about rehearsals.'

' I told you I would let you know when rehearsals
began.'

' But you forgot to take my address.'

' As if I don't know where to find you !'

Kloot grinned. ' Pinchas gets drinks from all the
cafe,' he put in.

'They drink to the health of "Hamlet,"' said
Pinchas proudly.

' All right ; Kloot's gotten your address. Good-
evening.'

' But when will it be ? I must know.'

' We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money
in this piece yet.'

' Money — bah ! But merit ?'

THE YIDDISH < HAMLET' 273

' You fellows are as jealous as the devil.'

1 Me jealous of kangaroos ! In Central Park you

see giraffes — and tortoises too. Central Park has

more talent than this scribbler of yours.'

* I doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,'
murmured Goldwater.

' I'll write you about rehearsals,' said Kloot, winking
at Goldwater.

4 But I must know weeks ahead— I may go lecturing.
The great continent calls for me. In Chicago, in
Cincinnati '

' Go, by all means,' said Goldwater. ' We can do
without you.'

4 Do without me ? A nice mess you will make of it !
I must teach you how to say every line.'

' Teach me ?' Goldwater could hardly believe his ears.

Pinchas wavered. fl — I mean the company. I
will show them the accent — the gesture. I'm a great
stage-manager as well as a great poet. There shall be
no more prompter.'

'Indeed!' Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was
pencilling. ' And how are you going to get on without
a prompter ?'

4 Very simple — a month's rehearsals.'

Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his
rouge.

Kloot broke in impishly : ' It is very good of you to
give us a month of your valuable time.'

But Goldwater was too irate for irony. * A month !'
he gasped at last. * I could put on six melodramas
in a month.'

* But " Hamlet " is not a melodrama !7 said Pinchas,
shocked.

18

274 GHETTO COMEDIES

' Quite so ; there is not half the scenery. It's
the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the
scenes.'

The poet was now as purple as the player. * You
would profane my divine work by gabbling through
it with your pack of parrots !'

' Here, just you come off your perch !' said Kloot.

* You've written the piece ; we do the rest.' Kloot,
though only nineteen and at a few dollars a week,
had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole
world, but even with his employer. He was now, to
his amaze, confronted by a superior.

* Silence, impudent-face ! You are not talking to
Radsikoff. I am a Poet, and I demand my rights.'

Kloot was silent from sheer surprise.

Goldwater was similarly impressed. 4 What rights ?'
he observed more mildly. ' You've had your twenty
dollars. And that was too much.'

* Too much ! Twenty dollars for the masterpiece
of the twentieth century !'

' In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-
one dollars,' said Kloot, recovering.

' Make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly.

* I shall be living in the fifty-first century even. Poets
never die — though, alas ! they have to live. Twenty
dollars too much, indeed ! It is not a dollar a century
for the run of the play.'

' Very well,' said Goldwater grimly. ' Give them
back. We return your play.'

This time it was the poet that was disconcerted.

* No, no, Goldwater — I must not disappoint my
printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars to
print my Hebrew " Selections from Nietzsche."

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET* 275

' You take your manuscript and give me my money,'
said Goldwater implacably.

* Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob you.
Keep your bargain. See, here is the printer's letter.'
He dragged from a tail-pocket a mass of motley
manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside
the telephone as if to search among them.

Goldwater waved a repudiating hand.

' Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.' The poet's
earn eying forefinger was laid on his nose. ' I and you
are the only two people in New York who serve the
poetic drama — I by writing, you by producing.'

Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit ap-
peased by the flattery.

Kloot replied for him : ' Your manuscript shall be
returned to you by the first dustcart.'

Pinchas disregarded the youth. ' But I am willing
you shall have only a fortnight's rehearsals. I believe
in you, Goldwater. I have always said, " The only
genius on the Yiddish stage is Goldwater." Kloster-
mann — bah ! He produces not so badly, but act ?
My grandmother's hen has a better stage presence.
And there is Davidoff — a voice like a frog and a walk
like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of
when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater — your
fame has blown across the Atlantic, over the Car-
pathians. I journeyed from Cracow expressly to
collaborate with you.'

' Then why do you spoil it all ?' asked the mollified
manager.

' It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be dis-
appointed in you. Let us talk of the cast.'

' It is so early yet.'

18— 2

276 GHETTO COMEDIES

' " The early bird catches the worm." '

' But all our worms are caught,' grinned Kloot.
1 We keep our talent pinned on the premises.'

' I know, I know,' said Pinchas, paling. He saw
Mrs. Goldwater tripping on saucily as Ophelia.

' But we don't give all our talent to one play,' the
manager reminded him.

c No, of course not,' said Pinchas, with a breath of
hope.

' We have to use all our people by turns. We divide
our forces. With myself as Hamlet you will have a
cast that should satisfy any author.'

' Do I not know it ?' cried Pinchas. ' Were you but
to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by
the prompter, the house would be spellbound, like
Moses when he saw the burning bush.'

* That being so,' said Goldwater, ' you couldn't
expect to have my wife in the same cast.'

' No, indeed,' said Pinchas enthusiastically. ' Two
such tragic geniuses would confuse and distract, like the
sun and the moon shining together.'

Goldwater coughed. ' But Ophelia is really a small
part,' he murmured.

' It is,' Pinchas acquiesced. * Your wife's tragic
powers could only be displayed in " Hamlet " if, like
another equally celebrated actress, she appeared as
the Prince of Palestine himself.'

4 Heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself !'
said Goldwater. ' A decent Jewish housewife cannot
appear in breeches.'

' That is what makes it impossible,' assented
Pinchas. 'And there is no other part worthy of Mrs.
Goldwater.'

You compare my wife to a Kangaroo !

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 277

4 It may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the
manager musingly.

* And who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice
herself ?' replied the poet modestly.

4 Fanny won't sacrifice Ophelia,' Kloot observed
drily to his chief.

* You hear ?' said Goldwater, as quick as lightning.
4 My wife will not sacrifice Ophelia by leaving her to a
minor player. She thinks only of the play. It is very
noble of her.'

4 But she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet
desperately, c she needs a rest.'

4 My wife never spares herself.'

Pinchas lost his head. 4 But she might spare
Ophelia,' he groaned.

4 What do you mean ?' cried Goldwater gruffly.
* My wife will honour you by playing Ophelia. That
is ended.' He waved the make-up brush in his
hand.

1 No, it is not ended,' said Pinchas desperately.
4 Your wife is a comic actress '

4 You just admitted she was tragid '

4 It is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said
Pinchas, burning his boats. 4 She skips and jumps.
Rather would I give Ophelia to one of your kan-
garoos !'

4 You low-down monkey !' Goldwater almost flung
his brush into the poet's face. 4 You compare my
wife to a kangaroo ! Take your filthy manuscript and
begone where the pepper grows.'

4 Well, Fanny would be rather funny as Ophelia,'
put in Kloot pacifyingly.

4 And to make your wife ridiculous as Ophelia,'

278 GHETTO COMEDIES

added Pinchas eagerly, ' you would rob the world of
your Hamlet !'

' I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can
translate Shakespeare.'

' Perhaps, but who can surpass Shakespeare ?
Who can make him intelligible to the modern soul ?'

* Mr. Goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness
of a reply.

The irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape
with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot
was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation.
In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly
bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters
and perused them. As there were scraps of verse
amid the mass, Pinchas let him read on unrebuked.

' You will talk to him, Kloot,' he pleaded at last.
6 You will save Ophelia ?'

The big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent
inquisition. ' Rely on me, if I have to play her
myself.'

' But that will be still worse,' said Pinchas seriously.

Kloot grinned. ' How do you know ? You've
never seen me act ?'

The poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose.
' You will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly
Ophelia ? I and you are the only two men in New
York who understand how to cast a play.'

* You leave it to me,' said Kloot ; ' I have a wife of my
own.'

' What !' shrieked Pinchas.

4 Don't be alarmed — I'll coach her. She's just the
age for the part. Mrs. Goldwater might be her
mother.'

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 279

4 But can she make the audience cry ?'

4 You bet ; a regular onion of an Ophelia.'

4 But I must see her rehearse, then I can decide.'

4 Of course.'

* And you will seek me in the cafe when rehearsals
begin ?'

4 That goes without saying.'

The poet looked cunning. e But don't you say
without going.'

4 How can we rehearse without you ? You shouldn't
have worried the boss. We'll call you, even if it's the
middle of the night.'

The poet jumped at Kloot's hand and kissed it.

4 Protector of poets !' he cried ecstatically. * And
you will see that they do not mutilate my play ; you
will not suffer a single hair of my poesy to be harmed ?'

4 Not a hair shall be cut,' said Kloot solemnly.

Pinchas kissed his hand again. 4 Ah, I and you
are the only two men in New York who understand
how to treat poesy.'

4 Sure !' Kloot snatched his hand away. 4 Good-
bye.'

Pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. * And
you will see it is not adulterated with American. In
Zion they do not say 4C Sure " or 44 Lend me a nickel."

4 1 guess not,' said Kloot. 4 Good-bye.'

4 All the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-
fare.'

Kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents.
He handed it over.

The poet went. An instant afterwards the door
reopened and his head reappeared, the nose adorned
with a pleading forefinger.

280 GHETTO COMEDIES

* You promise me all this ?'

* Haven't I promised ?'
' But swear to me.'

' Will you go — if I swear.'

' Yup,' said Pinchas, airing his American.

' And you won't come back till rehearsals begin ?'

' Nup.'

* Then I swear — on my father's and mother's life !'
Pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that Kloot

was an orphan.

Ill

On the very verge of Passover, Pinchas, lying in
bed at noon with a cigarette in his mouth, was reading
his morning paper by candle-light ; for he tenanted
one of those innumerable dark rooms which should
make New York the photographer's paradise. The
yellow glow illumined his prophetic and unshaven
countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs, as he
critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew
letters served as the channel for the mongrel Yiddish
and American dialect, in which ' congressman,'
' sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all
the outer Oriental robing of the Old Testament.
Suddenly a strange gurgle spluttered through the
cigarette smoke. He read the announcement again.

The Yiddish ' Hamlet ' was to be the Passover
production at Goldwater's Theatre. The author was
the world-renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas, and
the music was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous
composer.

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET* 281

' World-famous composer, indeed !' cried Pinchas to
his garret walls. ' Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky ?
And who wants his music ? The tragedy of a thinker
needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Gold water
imagine I have written a melodrama ? At most will
I permit an overture — or the cymbals shall clash as I
take my call.'

He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irrita-
tion at this intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indig-
nation at the imminence of his play. The dogs !
The liars ! The first night was almost at hand, and
no sign had been vouchsafed to him. He had been
true to his promise ; he had kept away from the
theatre. But Goldwater ! But Kloot ! Ah, the god-
less gambler with his parents' lives ! With such ghouls
hovering around the Hebrew ' Hamlet,' who could say
how the masterpiece had been mangled ? Line upon
line had probably been cut ; nay, who knew that a
whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give
more time for that miserable music !

He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane,
hurried off to the theatre, breathless and breakfastless.
Orchestral music vibrated through the lobby and
almost killed his pleasure in the placards of the
Yiddish ' Hamlet.' He gave but a moment to
absorbing the great capital letters of his name ; a
dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a glowing,
crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. Gold-
water, limelit, occupied the centre of the boards.
Hamlet trod the battlements of the tower of David,
and gazed on the cupolas and minarets of Jerusalem.

With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas
galloped toward the fiddling and banging orchestra.

282 GHETTO COMEDIES

A harmless sweeper in his path was herself swept aside.
But her fallen broom tripped up the runner. He fell
with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane
contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered
where erst had stood a poet.

Goldwater stopped dead. ' Can't you sweep
quietly ?' he thundered terribly through the music.

Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra
paused.

' It is I, the author !' said Pinchas, struggling up
through clouds like some pagan deity.

Hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. ' And
what do you want ?'

' What do I want ?' repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze.

Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings
munching a sandwich.

4 Sure, there's Shakespeare !' he said. ' I've just
been round to the cafe to find you. Got this sandwich
there.'

' But this — this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered
Pinchas, a jot appeased.

' The first dress-rehearsal,' Kloot replied reassur-
ingly. 'We don't trouble authors with the rough
work. They stroll in and put on the polish. Won't
you come on the stage ?'

Unable to repress a grin of happiness, Pinchas
stumbled through the dim parterre, barking his shins
at almost every step. Arrived at the orchestra, he
found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled
to the left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown
holland, loomed ghostly.

4 No,' said Kloot, ' that door's got stuck. You
must come round by the stage-door.'

THE YIDDISH ' HAMLET' 283

Pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth
remainder of his shins. He allowed himself a palpi-
tating pause before the lobby posters. His blood
chilled. Not only was Ignatz Levitsky starred in equal
type, but another name stood out larger than either :

Ophelia . . . . . . Fanny Goldwater.

His wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage-
door. He pushed it open, but a gruff voice inquired
his business, and a burly figure blocked his way.

4 1 am the author,' he said with quiet dignity.

4 Authors ain't admitted,' was the simple reply.

' But Goldwater awaits me,' the poet protested.

* I guess not. Mr. Kloot's orders. Can't have
authors monkeying around here.' As he spoke Gold-
water's voice rose from the neighbouring stage in an
operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas's brain to
chaos. A despairing sense of strange plots and
treasons swept over him. He ran back to the lobby.
The doors had been bolted. He beat against them
with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall
policeman persuaded him that home was better than
a martyr's cell.

Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor
Pinchas till the first night — and the third act — of the
Yiddish ' Hamlet.' He had reconciled himself to his
extrusion from rehearsals. ' They fear I fire Ophelia,'
he told the cafe.

But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached
him for the premiere ; the boxes he had promised the
cafe did not materialize, and the necessity of avoiding
that haunt of the invited cost him several meals. But
that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass

284 GHETTO COMEDIES

in ' on his face ' — that authors should be admitted
neither at the stage door nor at the public door —
this had not occurred to him as within the possibilities
of even theatrical humanity.

' Pigs ! Pigs ! Pigs !' he shrieked into the box office.
' You and Goldwater and Kloot ! Pigs ! Pigs ! Pigs !
I have indeed cast my pearls before swine. But I
will not be beholden to them — I will buy a ticket.'

' We're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding
recklessly : ' Get a move on you ; other people want
to buy seats.'

' You can't keep me out ! It's conspiracy !' He
darted within, but was hustled as rapidly without. He
ran back to the stage-door, and hurled himself against
the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the side-
walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation.
He was left cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like
the maledictions in Deuteronomy, only brought up to
date by dynamite explosions and automobile accidents.
Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon
a blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The
lobby was deserted save for a few strangers ; his play
had begun. And he — he, the god who moved all this
machinery — he, whose divine fire was warming all
that great house, must pace out here in the cold and
dark, not even permitted to loiter in the corridors !
But for the rumblings of applause that reached him he
could hardly have endured the situation.

Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the
nearest drug-store, and entering the telephone cabinet
rang up Goldwater.

' Hello, there !' came the voice of Kloot. ' Who are
you ?'

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET* 285

Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth,
in his peaked cap, sitting on the table by the telephone,
swinging his legs ; but he replied craftily, in a disguised
voice : ' You, Goldwater ?'

1 No ; Goldwater's on the stage.'

Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Gold-
water's voice returned to the bureau, ejaculating com-
placently : ' They're loving it, Kloot ; they're swallow-
ing it like ice-cream soda.'

Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied
was : ' You're wanted on the 'phone.'

' Hello !' called Goldwater.

' Hello !' replied Pinchas in his natural voice.
' May a sudden death smite you ! May the curtain
fall on a gibbering epileptic !'

' Can't hear !' said Goldwater. ' Speak plainer.'

' I will speak plainer, swine-head ! Never shall a
work of mine defile itself in your dirty dollar-factory.
I spit on you !' He spat viciously into the telephone
disk. ' Your father was a Meshummad (apostate), and
your mother '

But Goldwater had cut off the connection. Pinchas
finished for his own satisfaction : ' An Irish fire-
woman.'

' That was worth ten cents,' he muttered, as he strode
out into the night. And patrolling the front of the
theatre again, or leaning on his cane as on a sword,
he was warmed by the thought that his venom had
pierced through all the actor-manager's defences.

At last a change came over the nightmare. Striding
from the envied, illuminated Within appeared the
Heathen Journalist, note-book in hand. At sight of
the author he shied. ' Must skedaddle, Pin-cuss,' he

286 GHETTO COMEDIES

said apologetically, ' if we're to get anything into to-
morrow's paper. Your people are so durned slow —
nearly eleven, and only two acts over. You'll have
to brisk 'em up a bit. Good-bye.'

He shook the poet's hand and was off. With an
inspiration Pinchas gave chase. He caught the
Journalist just boarding a car.

' Got your theatre ticket ?' he panted.

' What for ?'

' Give it me.'

The Journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and
threw him a crumpled fragment. ' What in

thunder ' he began. And then, to Pinchas's relief,

the car removed the querist.

For the moment the poet was feeling only the
indignity of the position, and the Heathen Journalist
as trumpeter of his wrongs and avenger of the Muses
had not occurred to him. He smoothed out the magic
scrap, and was inside the suffocating, close-packed
theatre before the disconcerted janitor could meet the
new situation. Pinchas found the vacated journalistic
chair in the stage-box ; he was installed therein before
the managerial minions arrived on ejection bent.

' This is my house !' screamed Pinchas. ' I stay here !
Let me be — swine, serpents, Behemoth !'

' Sh !' came in a shower from every quarter. ' Sit
down there ! Turn him out !J The curtain was going
up ; Pinchas was saved.

But only for more gruesome torture. The third act
began. Hamlet collogued with the Queen. The poet
pricked up his ears. Whose language was this ?
Certainly not Shakespeare's or his superior's. Angels
and ministers of grace defend him ! this was only the

THE YIDDISH ' HAMLET* 287

illiterate jargon of the hack playwright, with its
peppering of the phrases of Hester Street. ' You
have too many dead flies on you,' Hamlet's mother
told him. 'You'll get left.' But the nightmare
thickened. Hamlet and his mother opened their
mouths and sang. Their songs were light and gay,
and held encore verses to reward the enthusiastic.
The actors, like the audience, were leisurely ; here mid-
night and the closure were not synonymous. When
there were no more encore verses, Ignatz Levitsky
would turn to the audience and bow in acknowledg-
ment of the compliment. Pinchas's eyes were orbs
straining at their sockets ; froth gathered on his lips.

Mrs. Goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her
songs set to comic airs. The great house received her
in the same comic spirit. Instead of rue and rosemary
she carried a rustling green Lulov — the palm-branch of
the Feast of Tabernacles — and shook it piously toward
every corner of the compass. At each shake the
audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. A
moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the
measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to
hysteria. It was the Ghost appearing to frighten
Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes mingled with her
terror-stricken soprano.

This was the last straw. The Ghost— the Ghost
that he had laid forever, the Ghost that made melo-
drama of this tragedy of the thinker — was risen again,
and cake-walking !

Unperceived in the general convulsion and cachin-
nation, Pinchas leaped to his feet, and, seeing scarlet,
bounded through the iron door and made for the
stage. But a hand was extended in the nick of time—

288 GHETTO COMEDIES

the hand he had kissed — and Pinchas was drawn back
by the collar.

' You don't take your call yet,' said the unruffled
Kloot.

' Let me go ! I must speak to the people. They
must learn the truth. They think me, Melchitsedek
Pinchas, guilty of this tohu-bohu ! My sun will set. I
shall be laughed at from the Hudson to the Jordan.'

' Hush ! Hush ! You are interrupting the poesy.'

' Who has drawn and quartered my play ? Speak !'

' I've only arranged it for the stage,' said Kloot,
unabashed.

' You !' gasped the poet.

1 You said I and you are the only two men who
understand how to treat poesy.'

4 You understand push-carts, not poesy !' hissed the
poet. c You conspire to keep me out of the theatre —
I will summons you !'

' We had to keep all authors out. Suppose Shake-
speare had turned up and complained of you.'

' Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.'

' Hush ! The boss is going on.'

From the opposite wing Hamlet was indeed advanc-
ing. Pinchas made a wild plunge forward, but Kloofs
grasp on his collar was still carefully firm.

* Who's mutilating the poesy now ?' Kloot frowned
angrily from under his peaked cap. ' You'll spoil the
scene.'

' Peace, liar ! You promised me your wife for Ophelia ! '

Kloofs frown relaxed into a smile. * Sure ! The
first wife I get you shall have.'

Pinchas gnashed his teeth. Goldwater's voice rose
in a joyous roulade.

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 289

' 1 think you owe me a car-fare,' said Kloot soothingly.

Pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane.
' Why does Hamlet sing ?' he demanded fiercely.

' Because it's Passover,' said Kloot. ' You are a
" greener " in New York, otherwise you would know
that it is a tradition to have musical plays on Passover.
Our audiences wouldn't stand for any other. You're
such an unreasonable cuss ! Why else did we take
your " Hamlet " for a Passover play ?'

' But " Hamlet " isn't a musical play.'

* Yes, it is ! How about Ophelia's songs ? That was
what decided us. Of course they needed eking out.'

' But " Hamlet " is a tragedy !' gasped Pinchas.

'Sure!' said Kloot cheerfuUy. 'They all die at
the end. Our audiences would go away miserable if
they didn't. You wait till they're dead, then you
shall take your call.'

' Take my call, for your play !'

' There's quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen
carefully. Only you don't understand stage technique.
Oh, I'm not grumbling ; we're quite satisfied. The
idea of adapting " Hamlet " for the Yiddish stage is
yours, and it's worth every cent we paid.'

A storm of applause gave point to the speaker's
words, and removed the last partition between the
poet's great mind and momentary madness. What !
here was that ape of a Goldwater positively wallowing
in admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been
cast into outer darkness and his work mocked and
crucified ! He put forth all his might, like Samson
amid the Philistines, and leaving his coat-collar in
Kloofs hand, he plunged into the circle of light.
Gold water's amazed face turned to meet him.

290 GHETTO COMEDIES

4 Cutter of lines !' The poet's cane slashed across
Hamlet's right cheek near the right eye. * Per vert er of
poesy !' It slashed across the left cheek near the left eye.

The Prince of Palestine received each swish with a
yell of pain and fear, and the ever-ready Kloot dropped
the curtain on the tragic scene.

Such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of
the curtain ! Yet in the end the poet escaped scot-
free. Goldwater was a coward, Kloot a sage. The
same prudence that had led Kloot to exclude authors,
saved him from magnifying their importance by police
squabbles. Besides, a clever lawyer might prove the
exclusion illegal. What was done was done. The
dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best
served by private beefsteaks and a rumoured version,
irrefutable save in a court of law. It was bad enough
that the Heathen Journalist should supply so graphic
a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even
more highly than Gold water's eyes. Kloot had been
glad that the Journalist had left before the episode ; but
when he saw the account he wished the scribe had stayed.

* He won't play Hamlet with that pair of shiners,'
Pinchas prophesied early the next morning to the
supping caf6.

Radsikoff beamed and refilled Pinchas's glass with
champagne. He had carried out his promise of
assisting at the premiere, and was now paying for the
poet's supper.

' You're the first playwright Goldwater hasn't
managed to dodge,' he chuckled.

' Ah !' said the poet meditatively. ' Action is
greater than Thought. Action is the greatest thing
in the world.'

THE CONVERTS

19 — 2

THE CONVERTS

As he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed work-
shop on the Bowery, clumsily pasting the flamboyant
portrait on the boxes of the ' Yvonne Rupert cigar,'
he wondered dully— after the first flush of joy at
getting a job after weeks of hunger — at the strange
fate that had again brought him into connection,
however remote, with stageland. For even to Elkan
Handle, with his Ghetto purview, Yvonne Rupert's
fame, both as a ' Parisian ' star and the queen of
American advertisers, had penetrated. Ever since
she had summoned a Jewish florist for not paying her
for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a
single week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled
her to supply him, the journals had continued to
paragraph her amusing, self -puffing adventures.

Not that there was much similarity between the
New York star and his little actress of the humble
Yiddish Theatre in London, save for that aureole of
fluffy hair, which belonged rather to the genus than
the \ndi vidual. But as the great Yvonne's highly-
coloured charms went on repeating themselves from
every box-cover he manipulated (at seventy-five cents

293

294 GHETTO COMEDIES

a hundred), the face of his own Gittel grew more and
more vivid, till at last the whole splendid, shameful
past began to rise up from its desolate tomb.

He even lived through that prologue in the Ghetto
garret, when, as benevolent master-tailor receiving the
highest class work from S. Cohn's in the Hollo way
Road, he was called upstairs to assist the penniless
Polish immigrants.

There she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the
rickety table just contributed to the home, a piquant,
dark-eyed, yet golden-haired, mite of eleven, calm and
comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter of parents
and children.

' Settle this among yourselves,' she seemed to be
saying. ' When the chairs are here I will sit on
them ; when the table is laid I will draw to ; when the
pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr on
the hearth.'

Ah, he had come forward as the pious philanthropist
— pious enough then, Heaven knew. Why had Satan
thrown such lures in the way of the reputable employer,
the treasurer of ' The Gates of Mercy ' Synagogue,
with children of his own, and the best wife in the
world ? Did he not pray every day to be delivered
from the Satan Mekatrig? Had he not meant it
for the best when he took her into his workshop ?
It was only when, at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein
left the whirring machine-room for the more lucrative
and laurelled position of heroine of Goldwater's
London Yiddish Theatre that he had discovered how
this whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated
herself into his very being.

Ah, madness, madness ! that flight with her to

THE CONVERTS 295

America with all his savings, that desertion of his
wife and children ! But what delicious delirium that
one year in New York, prodigal, reckless, ere, with
the disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared.
And now, here he was — after nigh seven apathetic
years, in which the need of getting a living was the
only spur to living on — glad to take a woman's place
when female labour struck for five cents more a
hundred. The old bitter tears came up to his eyes,
blurring the cheerless scene, the shabby men and
unlovely women with their red paste-pots, the medley
of bare and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-
balls. And as he wept, the vain salt drops moistened
the pictures of Yvonne Rupert.

II

She became an obsession, this Franco- American
singer and dancer, as he sat pasting and pasting,
caressing her pictured face with sticky fingers. There
were brief intervals of freedom from her image when
he was ' edging ' and ' backing,' or when he was
lining the boxes with the plain paper ; but Yvonne
came twice on every box — once in large on the inside,
once in small on the outside, with a gummed projection
to be stuck down after the cigars were in. He fell
to recalling what he had read of her — the convent
education that had kept her chaste and distinguished
beneath all her stage deviltry, the long Lenten fasts
she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger's
bill she disputed in open court), the crucifix concealed

296 GHETTO COMEDIES

upon her otherwise not too reticent person, the
adorable French accent with which she enraptured
the dudes, the palatial private car in which she
traversed the States, with its little chapel giving on
the bathroom ; the swashbuckling Marquis de St.
Roquiere, who had crossed the Channel after her, and
the maid he had once kidnapped in mistake for the
mistress ; the diamond necklace presented by the
Rajah of Singapuri, stolen at a soiree in San Francisco,
and found afterwards as single stones in a low ' hock-
shop ' in New Orleans.

And despite all this glitter of imposing images a
subconscious thought was forcing itself more and more
clearly to the surface of his mind. That aureole of
golden hair, those piquant dark eyes ! The Yvonne
the cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar
with had lacked this revelation of colour ! But no,
the idea was insane !

This scintillating celebrity his lost Gittel !

Bah ! Misery had made him childish. Goldwater
had, indeed, blossomed out since the days of his
hired hall in Spitalfields, but his fame remained ex-
clusively Yiddish and East-side. But Gittel !

How could that obscure rush-light of the London
Ghetto Theatre have blazed into the Star of Paris and
New York ?

This Lent-keeping demoiselle the little Polish Jewess
who had munched Passover cake at his table in the
far-off happy days ! This gilded idol the impecunious
Gittel he had caressed !

' You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert ?' he inquired
of his neighbour, a pock-marked, spectacled young
woman, who, as record-breaker of the establishment,

THE CONVERTS 297

had refused to join the strike of the mere hundred-and-
fifty a day.

The young woman swiftly drew a knife from the
wooden pail beside her, and deftly scraped at a rough
hinge as she replied : ' No, but I guess she's the actress
who gets all the flowers, and won't pay for 'em.'

He saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the
description seemed to hit off his Gittel to the life.
Yes, Gittel had always got all the flowers of life, and
dodged paying. Ah, she had always been diabolically
clever, unscrupulously ambitious ! Who could put
bounds to her achievement ? She had used him and
thrown him away — without a word, without a regret.
She had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly
as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day's paste. What
other ' pious philanthropist ' had she found to replace
him ? Whither had she fled ? Why not to Paris that
her theatric gifts might receive training ?

This chic, this witchery, with which reputation
credited her — had not Gittel possessed it all ? Had
not her heroines enchanted the Ghetto ?

Oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as
the smoke-wreaths of the Yvonne Rupert cigar !

Ill

But the obsession persisted. In his miserable attic
off Hester Street — that recalled the attic he had found
her in, though it was many stories nearer the sky — he
warmed himself with Gittel's image, smiling, light-
darting, voluptuous. Night and sleep surrendered

298 GHETTO COMEDIES

him to grotesque combinations — Gittel Goldstein
smoking cigarettes in a bath-room, Yvonne Rupert
playing Yiddish heroines in a little chapel.

In the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten
in the realized absurdity of the initial identification.
But a forenoon at the pasting-desk brought back the
haunting thought. At noon he morbidly expended
his lunch-dime on an ' Yvonne Rupert ' cigar, and
smoked it with a semi-insane feeling that he was
repossessing his Gittel. Certainly it was delicious.

He wandered into the box-making room, where the
man who tended the witty nail-driving machine was
seated on a stack of Mexican cedar-wood, eating from
a package of sausage and scrapple that sent sobering
whiffs to the reckless smoker.

' You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert ?' he asked
wistfully.

' Might as well ask if I'd smoked her cigar !' grumbled
the nailer through his mouthfuls.

' But there's a gallery at Webster and Dixie's.'

' Su-er !'

* I guess I'll go some day, just for curiosity.'

But the great Yvonne, he found, was flaming in her
provincial orbit. So he must needs wait.

Meantime, on a Saturday night, with a dirty two-
dollar bill in his pocket, and jingling some odd cents,
he lounged inte the restaurant where the young Russian
bloods assembled who wrote for the Yiddish Labour
papers, and ' knew it all.' He would draw them out
about Yvonne Rupert. He established himself near a
table at which long-haired, long-fingered Freethinkers
were drinking chocolate and discussing Lassalle.

' Ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a

THE CONVERTS 299

schoolboy to protest against the master's injustice to one
of his schoolfellows ! How the divine fire flamed in him !*

They talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying
the Lassalle legend, broidering it with Messianic myths,
with the same fantastic Oriental invention that had
illuminated the plain Pentateuch with imaginative
vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of
Socialism with the same passionate personalization.
He listened impatiently. He had never been caught
by Socialism, even at his hungriest. He had once been
an employer himself, and his point of view survived.

They talked of the woman through whom Lassalle
had met his death. One of them had seen her on the
American stage — a bouncing burlesque actress.

' Like Yvonne Rupert ?' he ventured to interpose.

' Yvonne Rupert ?' They laughed. * Ah, if Yvonne
had only had such a snap !' cried Melchitsedek Pinchas.
1 To have jilted Lassalle and been died for ! What an
advertisement !'

4 It would have been on the bill,' agreed the table.

He asked if they thought Yvonne Rupert clever.

' Off the stage ! There's nothing to her on,' said
Pinchas.

The table roared as if this were a good joke. ' I
dare say she would play my Ophelia as well as Mrs.
Goldwater,' Pinchas added zestfully.

' They say she has a Yiddish accent,' Elkan ventured
again.

The table roared louder. * I have heard of Yiddish-
Deutsch,' cried Pinchas, ' never of Yiddish-Frangais !'

Elkan Mandle was frozen. By his disappointment he
knew that he had been hoping to meet Gittel again —
that his resentment was dead.

300 GHETTO COMEDIES

IV

But the hope would not die. He studied the
theatrical announcements, and when Yvonne Rupert
once again flashed upon New York he set out to see
her. But it struck him that the remote seat he could
afford — for it would not do to spend a week's wage on
the mere chance — would be too far off for precise
identification, especially as she would probably be
theatrically transmogrified. No, a wiser as well as a
more economical plan would be to meet her at the
stage-door, as he used to meet Gittel. He would hang
about till she came.

It was a long ride to the Variety Theatre, and, the
weather being sloppy, there was not even standing-
room in the car, every foot of which, as it plunged and
heaved ship-like through the watery night, was a
suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats,
or clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming
like stuck flies on the fore and hind platforms, the
squeeze and smell intensified by the shovings and
writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or
by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector
of fares boring his way through the very thick of the
soldered mass. Elkan alighted with a headache, glad
even of the cold rain that sprinkled his forehead. The
shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled him
for once with a bitter revolt. But he dared not
insinuate himself among the white-wrapped, scented
women and elegant cloaked men, though he itched to
enter the portico and study the pictures of Yvonne
Rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. He found his

THE CONVERTS 301

way instead to the stage-door, and took up a position
that afforded him a complete view of the comers and
goers, if only partial shelter from the rain.

But the leaden hours passed without her, with endless
fevers of expectation, heats followed by chills. The
performers came and went, mostly on foot, and strange
nondescript men and women passed too through the
jealously-guarded door.

He was drenched to the skin with accumulated
drippings ere a smart brougham drove up, a smart
groom opened an umbrella, and a smart — an unimagin-
ably smart — Gittel Goldstein alighted.

Yes, the incredible was true !

Beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of
hair, gleamed the piquant eyes he had kissed so
often.

He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring.
She passed through the door the groom held open.
The doorkeeper, from his pigeon-hole, handed her some
letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the shoulders,
every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the
envelopes. As the groom let the door swing back and
turned away, he rushed forward and pushed it open
again.

' Gittel !' he cried chokingly. ' Gittel !'

She turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in
her flushed, startled face he read consciousness if not
recognition. The reek of her old cherry-blossom
smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand
passionate memories.

' Knowest thou me not ?' he cried in Yiddish.

In a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty
stare.

304

GHETTO COMEDIES

theory that brooding so much over her fascinating
picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment
a hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips
grimly. What was the use of talking ? Whatever
he said would be discredited on this impish theory.
And, even without it, how incredible his story, how
irrelevant to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper !

6 1 was drunk,' was all he would say. He was com-
mitted for trial, and, having no one to bail him out,
lingered in a common cell with other reprobates till the
van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up to
justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the
Stars and Stripes. A fortnight's more confinement
was all that was meted out to him, but he had already
had time enough to reflect that he had given Yvonne
Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life.
It would have enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had
he known, as the knowing world outside knew, that
he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert's pay, and that
New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious
dodge by which she had again asserted her sovereignty
as an advertiser — delicious, immense !

VI

Short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided,
much to his own surprise, with the Jewish Penitential
period, and the Day of Atonement came in the middle.
A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a
prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at
the break in the monotony. Several of the prisoners

THE CONVERTS 3°5

who posed as Jews with this same motive were detected
and reprimanded ; but Elkan felt, with the new grim
sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert
and the world she fooled was developing in him, that
he was as little of a Jew as any of them. This elope-
ment to America had meant a violent break with his
whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside
of an American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for
synagogues.

He entered the improvised prayer-room with this
ironic sense of coming back to Judaism by the Christian
prison door. But the service shook him terribly.
He forgot even to be amused by the one successful
impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen
deprivation of rations during the whole fast day.
The passionate outcries of the old-fashioned Chazdn,
the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the cornet,
which had once been merely aesthetic effects to the
reputable master-cutter, were now surcharged with
doom and chastisement. The very sight of the Hebrew
books and scrolls touched a thousand memories of
home and innocence.

Ah, God, how he had sinned !

' Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now !'
he cried, smiting his breast and rocking to and fro.

His poor deserted wife and children ! How terrible
for Haigitcha to wake up one morning and find him
gone ! As terrible as for him to wake up one morning
and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him
in kind ! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

The philanthropist himself preached the sermon.
God could never forgive sins till the sinner had first
straightened out the human wrongs.

20

304 GHETTO COMEDIES

theory that brooding so much over her fascinating
picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment
a hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips
grimly. What was the use of talking ? Whatever
he said would be discredited on this impish theory.
And, even without it, how incredible his story, how
irrelevant to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper !

6 1 was drunk,' was all he would say. He was com-
mitted for trial, and, having no one to bail him out,
lingered in a common cell with other reprobates till the
van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up to
justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the
Stars and Stripes. A fortnight's more confinement
was all that was meted out to him, but he had already
had time enough to reflect that he had given Yvonne
Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life.
It would have enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had
he known, as the knowing world outside knew, that
he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert's pay, and that
New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious
dodge by which she had again asserted her sovereignty
as an advertiser — delicious, immense !

VI

Short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided,
much to his own surprise, with the Jewish Penitential
period, and the Day of Atonement came in the middle.
A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a
prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at
the break in the monotony. Several of the prisoners

THE CONVERTS 30$

who posed as Jews with this same motive were detected
and reprimanded ; but Elkan felt, with the new grim
sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert
and the world she fooled was developing in him, that
he was as little of a Jew as any of them. This elope-
ment to America had meant a violent break with his
whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside
of an American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for
synagogues.

He entered the improvised prayer-room with this
ironic sense of coming back to Judaism by the Christian
prison door. But the service shook him terribly.
He forgot even to be amused by the one successful
impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen
deprivation of rations during the whole fast day.
The passionate outcries of the old-fashioned Chazan,
the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the cornet,
which had once been merely aesthetic effects to the
reputable master-cutter, were now surcharged with
doom and chastisement. The very sight of the Hebrew
books and scrolls touched a thousand memories of
home and innocence.

Ah, God, how he had sinned !

* Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now !'
he cried, smiting his breast and rocking to and fro.

His poor deserted wife and children ! How terrible
for Haigitcha to wake up one morning and find him
gone ! As terrible as for him to wake up one morning
and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him
in kind ! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

The philanthropist himself preached the sermon.
God could never forgive sins till the sinner had first
straightened out the human wrongs.

20

306 GHETTO COMEDIES

Ah, true, true ! If he could only find his family
again. If he could try by love and immeasurable
devotion to atone for the past. Then again life would
have a meaning and an aim. Poor, poor Haigitcha !
How he would weep over her and cherish her. And
his children ! They must be grown up. Yankely
must be quite a young man. Yes, he would be seven-
teen by now. And Rachael, that pretty, clinging
cherub !

In all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts
pause upon them. His past lay like a misty dream
behind those thousand leagues of ocean. But now it
started up in all the colours of daylight, warm, appeal-
ing. Yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must
still crave his love and guidance ; he would plead and
be forgiven, and end his days piously at the sacred
hearth of duty.

4 Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now !'

If only he could get back to old England.

He appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid
all his contrition. It was desperation at the severance
from his wife and children that had driven him to
drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the
Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be
content with a modicum and the wife of his bosom.

VII

He arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his
pocket, in the familiar Spitalfields alley, guarded by
the three iron posts over which he remembered his

THE CONVERTS 307

Yankely leaping. His heart was full of tears and
memories. Ah, there was the butcher's shop still
underneath the old apartment, with the tin labels stuck
in the kosher meat, and there was Gideon, the fat,
genial butcher, flourishing his great carving-knife as
of yore, though without that ancient smile of brotherly
recognition. Gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was
an inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered,
irrevocable.

'Does Mrs. Handle still live here?' he asked with a
horrible heart-sinking.

' Yes, first floor,' said Gideon, staring.

Ah, how his heart leapt up again ! Haigitcha, his
dear Haigitcha ! He went up the ever-open dusty
staircase jostling against a spruce, handsome young
fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with
a sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart
swelled with pride and affection ; but ere he could cry
' Yankely ' the young fellow was gone. He heard
the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the
workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled
by his loss and the want of capital. Doubtless
S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her to tide
over the crisis. Ah, what a blackguard he had been !
And she had brought up the children unaided. Dear
Haigitcha ! What madness had driven him from her
side ? But he would make amends — yes, he would
make amends. He would slip again into his own
niche, take up the old burdens and the old delights —
perhaps even be again treasurer of ' The Gates of
Mercy.'

He knocked at the door. Haigitcha herself opened
it.

20 — 2

308 GHETTO COMEDIES

He wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in
his throat. For this was not his Haigitcha ; this was
a new creature, cold, stern, tragic, prematurely aged,
framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. And
in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance.

'What is it ?' she asked.

4 1 am Elkan ; don't you know me ?'

She stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the
flat breasts. Then she said icily : ' And what do you
want ?'

' I am come back,' he muttered hoarsely in Yiddish.

' And where is Gittel ?' she answered in the same
idiom.

The needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing
through his brain. So London knew that Gittel had
been the companion of his flight! He hung his
head.

' I was only with her one year,' he whispered.

' Then go back to thy dung-heap !' She shut the
door.

He thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to.
c Haigitcha !' he shrieked. ' Let me come in. Forgive
me, forgive me !'

It was a tug-of-war. He forced open the door ; he
had a vision of surprised ' hands ' stopping their
machines, of a beautiful, startled girl holding the ends
of a half -laid tablecloth — his Rachel, oh, his Rachel !

6 Open the window, one of you !' panted Haigitcha,
her shoulders still straining against the door. ' Call a
policeman — the man is drunk !'

He staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door
slammed. This repetition of his ' Yvonne Rupert '
experience sobered him effectually. ^What * right,

THE CONVERTS 309

indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon
these children, to whom he was dead ? So might a
suicide hope to win back his place in the old life.
Life had gone on without him — had no need of
him. Ah, what a punishment God had prepared for
him ! Closed doors to the past, closed doors every-
where.

And this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the
same palliative of righteous resentment. With Yvonne
Rupert, the splendid-flaming, vicious ingrate, he had
felt himself the sinned against. But before this wife-
widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature,
he had nothing but self-contempt. He tottered down-
stairs. How should he even get his bread — he whose
ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the Ghetto ? If
he could only get hold of Gideon's carving-knife !

VIII

But he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve.
There is always one last refuge for the failures of the
Ghetto, and Elkan's easy experience with the Jewish
philanthropist had prepared the way for dealings
with the Christian.

To-day the Rev. Moses Elkan, ' the converted Jew/
preaches eloquently to his blind brethren who never
come to hear him. For he has ' found the light.'
Exeter Hall's exposition of the Jewish prophecies has
opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those
of his own household, yet, remembering the terrible
text, ' He that loveth son or daughter more than Me

3io GHETTO COMEDIES

is not worthy of Me,5 he has taken up his cross and
followed after Christ alone.

I '- And even if the good souls for whose thousands of
pounds he is the annual interest should discover his
true past — through this tale-bearer or another — is
there not but the more joy over the sinner that
repenteth ?

Duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual
world their unchangeable irreversible consequences —
all this is irrelevant. He has ' found the light.'
£,. And so, while Haigitcha walks in darkness, Yvonne
prays in her chapel and Elkan preaches in his church.

HOLY WEDLOCK

HOLY WEDLOCK

WHEN Schneemann, the artist, returned from Rome
to his native village in Galicia, he found it humming
with gossip concerning his paternal grandmother,
universally known as the Bube Yenta. It would seem
that the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue
conversing with Yossel Mandelstein, the hunchback,
and sometimes even offered the unshapely septua-
genarian her snuffbox as he passed the door of her
cottage. More than one village censor managed to
acquaint the artist with the flirtation ere he had
found energy to walk the muddy mile to her dwelling.
Even his own mother came out strongly in disapproval
of the ancient dame ; perhaps the remembrance of
how fanatically her mother-in-law had disapproved
of her married head for not being shrouded in a pious
wig lent zest to her tongue. The artist controlled his
facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and Bohemian-
ism in the Eternal City.

1 Old blood will have its way,' he said blandly.

' Yes, old blood's way is sometimes worse than
young blood's,' said Frau Schneemann, unsmiling.
' You must not forget that Yossel is still a bachelor.'

313

3M GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Yes, and therefore a sinner in Israel — I remember,'
quoth the artist with a twinkle. How all this would
amuse his bachelor friends, Leopold Barstein and
Rozenoffski the pianist !

' Make not mock. 'Tis high time you, too, should
lead a maiden under the Canopy.'

6 1 am so shy — there are few so forward as grand-
mother.'

' Heaven be thanked !' said his mother fervently.
' When I refused to cover my tresses she spoke as if
I were a brazen Epicurean, but I had rather have died
than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom I
was not betrothed.'

' Perhaps they are betrothed.'

' We betro:hed to Yossel ! May his name be blotted
out !'

' Why, what is wrong with Yossel ? Moses Mendels-
sohn himself had a hump.'

4 Who speaks of humps ? Have you forgotten we
are of Rabbinic family ?'

Her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten
so much of this naive life to which he was paying a
holiday visit.

' Ah yes,' he murmured. ' But Yossel is pious—
surely ?' A vision of the psalm-droners and prayer-
shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom the
hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up vividly.

' He may shake himself from dawn-service to night-
service, he will never shake off his father, the inn-
keeper,' said Frau Schneemann hotly. ' If I were in
your grandmother's place I would be weaving my
shroud, not thinking of young men.'

' But she's thinking of old men, you said.'

HOLY WEDLOCK 315

4 Compared with her he is young— she is eighty-
four, he is only seventy-five.'

' Well, they won't be married long,' he laughed.

Frau Schneemann laid her hand on his mouth.

4 Heaven forbid the omen,' she cried. 4 'Tis bringing
a Bilbul (scandal) upon a respectable family.'

4 1 will go and talk to her,' he said gravely. ' Indeed,
I ought to have gone to see her days ago.' And as he
trudged to the other end of the village towards the
cottage where the lively old lady lived in self-sufficient
solitude, he was full of the contrast between his
mother's mental world and his own. People live in
their own minds, and not in streets or fields, he
philosophized.

II

Through her diamond-paned window he saw the
wrinkled, white-capped old creature spinning peace-
fully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure cloistral
crone. It seemed profane to connect such a figure
with flirtation — this was surely the very virgin of
senility. What a fine picture she made too ! Why had
he never thought of painting her ? Yes, such a
picture of 'The Spinster ' would be distinctly interest-
ing. And he would put in the Kesubah, the
marriage certificate that hung over the mantelpiece,
in ironical reminder of her days of bloom. He un-
latched the door — he had never been used to knock
at grannie's door, and the childish instinct came back
to him.

* Guten Abend' he said.

316 GHETTO COMEDIES

She adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at
him.

4 Guten Abend,? she murmured.

' You don't remember me — Vroomkely.' He used
the old childish diminutive of Abraham, though he had
almost forgotten he owned the name in full.

' Vroomkely,' she gasped, almost overturning her
wheel as she sprang to hug him in her skinny arms.
He had a painful sense that she had shrunk back
almost to childish dimensions. Her hands seemed
trembling as much with decay as with emotion. She
hastened to produce from the well-known cupboard
home-made Kuchen and other dainties of his youth,
with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer
being tempted by them.

' And how goes your trade ?' she said. ' They say
you have never been slack. They must build many
houses in Rome.' Her notion that he was a house-
painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as
picture-painting was contrary to the Mosaic dis-
pensation.

' Oh, I haven't been only in Rome,' he said evasively.
' I have been in many lands.'

Fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the
big spectacles. ' You have been to Palestine ?' she
cried.

' No, only as far as Egypt. Why ?'

' I thought you might have brought me a clod of
Palestine earth to put in my grave.' The fire died out
of her spectacles, she sighed, and took a consolatory
pinch of snuff.

' Don't talk of graves — you will live to be a hundred
and more,' he cried. But he was thinking how

HOLY WEDLOCK 317

ridiculous gossip was. It spared neither age nor
sexlessness, not even this shrivelled ancient who was
meditating on her latter end. Suddenly he became
aware of a shadow darkening the doorway. At the
same instant the fire leapt back into his grandmother's
glasses. Instinctively, almost before he turned his
head, he knew it was the hero of the romance.

Yossel Mandelstein looked even less of a hero than
the artist had remembered. There had been some-
thing wistful and pathetic in the hunchback's ex-
pression, some hint of inner eager fire, but this — if
he had not merely imagined it — seemed to have died
of age and hopelessness. He used crutches, too, to
help himself along with, so that he seemed less the
hunchback of yore than the conventional contortion
of time, and but for the familiar earlocks pendent on
either side of the fur cap, but for the great hooked
nose and the small chin hidden in the big beard, the
artist might have doubted if this was indeed the
Yossel he had sometimes mocked at in the crude
cruelty of boyhood.

Yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a
mouldering black-covered book from under his greasy
caftan. 4 1 have brought you back your Chovoth
Halvovoth? he said.

In the vivid presence of the actual romance the
artist could not suppress the smile he had kept back
at the mere shadowy recital. In Rome he himself had
not infrequently called on young ladies by way of
returning books to them. It was true that the books
he returned were not Hebrew treatises, but he smiled
again to think that the name of Yossel's volume
signified ' the duties of the heart.' The Bube Yenta

3i8 GHETTO COMEDIES

received the book with thanks, and a moment of
embarrassment ensued, only slightly mitigated by the
offer of the snuffbox. Yossel took a pinch, but his
eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger
than over the bespread table, as though he might
unaccountably have overlooked some sacred festival.
That two are company and three none seemed at this
point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to
renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from
the idyllic cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry
for which he himself was too old.

So the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amuse-
ment not unblended with a touch of his mother's
indignation. Surely, if his grandmother wished to
cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen a
more sightly object of devotion. Not that there was
much to be said for Yossel's taste either. When after
seventy-five years of celibacy the fascinations of the
other sex began to tell upon him, he mi^ht at least
have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femi-
ninity. But perhaps his grandmother had fascina-
tions of another order. Perhaps she had money. He
put the question to his mother.

6 Certainly she has money,' said his mother vin-
dictively. ' She has thousands of Gulden in her stock-
ing. Twenty years ago she could have had her pick
of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has
one foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and
she has cast her eye upon this pauper.'

' But I thought his father left him his inn,' said the
artist.

4 His inn — yes. His sense — no. Yossel ruined
himself long, ago paying too much attention to the

HOLY WEDLOCK 319

Talmud instead of his business. He was always a
Schlemthl.'

' But can one pay too much attention to the
Talmud ? That is a strange saying for a Rabbi's
daughter.'

' King Solomon tells us there is a time for every-
thing,' returned the Rabbi's daughter. ' Yossel neg-
lected what the wise King said, and so now he comes
trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her
money. If he wanted to marry, why didn't he marry
before eighteen, as the Talmud prescribes ?'

4 He seems to do everything at the wrong time,'
laughed her son. ' Do you suppose, by the way, that
King Solomon made all his thousand marriages before
he was eighteen ?'

' Make not mock of holy things,' replied his mother
angrily.

The monetary explanation of the romance, he found,
was the popular one in the village. It did not, how-
ever, exculpate the grandame from the charge of
forwardness, since if she wished to contract another
marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by
the Shadchan, and then the poor marriage-broker, who
got little enough to do in this God-forsaken village,
might have made a few Gulden out of it.

Beneath all his artistic perception of the humours
of the thing, Schneemann found himself prosaically
sharing the general disapprobation of the marriage.
Really, when one came to think of it, it was ridiculous
that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon
him. And such a grandfather ! Perhaps the Bube
was, indeed, losing her reason. Or was it he himself
who was losing his reason, taking seriously this

320 GHETTO COMEDIES

parochial scandal, and believing that because a
doddering hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an
ethical treatise from an octogenarian a marriage must
be on the tapis ? Yet, on more than one occasion,
he came upon circumstances which seemed to justify
the popular supposition. There could be no doubt,
for example, that when at the conclusion of the
synagogue service the feminine stream from the
women's gallery poured out to mingle with the issuing
males, these two atoms drifted together with unnatural
celerity. It appeared to be established beyond
question that on the preceding Feast of Tabernacles
the Bube had lent and practically abandoned to the
hunchback's use the ritual palm-branch he was too
poor to afford. Of course this might only have been
gratitude, inasmuch as a fortnight earlier on the
solemn New Year Day when, by an untimely decree,
the grandmother lay ill abed, Yossel had obtained
possession of the Shofar, and leaving the synagogue
had gone to blow it to her. He had blown the holy
horn — with due regard to the proprieties — in the
downstairs room of her cottage so that she above had
heard it, and having heard it could breakfast. It was
a performance that charity reasonably required for a
disabled fellow-creature, and yet what medieval
knight had found a more delicate way of trumpeting
his mistress's charms ? Besides, how had Yossel
known that the heroine was ill ? His eye must have
roved over the women's gallery, and disentangled her
absence even from the huddled mass of weeping and
swaying womanhood.

One day came the crowning item of evidence. The
grandmother had actually asked the village postman

to obli

HOLY WEDLOCK 321

o oblige her by delivering a brown parcel at Yossel's
lodgings. The postman was not a Child of the
Covenant, but Yossel's landlady was, and within an
hour all Jewry knew that Yenta had sent Yossel a phy-
lacteries-bag— the very symbol of love offered by a
maiden to her bridegroom. Could shameless passion
further go ?

Ill

The artist, at least, determined it should go no
further. He put on his hat, and went to find Yossel
Mandelstein. But Yossel was not to be found so
easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with
each false scent. Yossel was ultimately run to earth,
or rather to Heaven, in the Beth Hamedrash, where
he was shaking himself studiously over a Babylonian
folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths
and greybeards equally careless of the demands of
life. The dusky home of holy learning seemed an
awkward place in which to broach the subject of love.
In a whisper he besought the oscillating student to
come outside. Yossel started up in agitation.

' Ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with
what seemed a lover's inaccuracy. ' I will come and
pray at once.'

' No, no, she is not dying,5 said Schneemann hastily,
adding in a grim murmur, ' unless of love.'

' Oh, then, it is not about your grandmother ?'

4 No— that is to say, yes.' It seemed more difficult
than ever to plunge into the delicate subject. To
refer plumply to the courtship would, especially if it

21

322 GHETTO COMEDIES

were not true, compromise his grandmother and,
incidentally, her family. Yet, on the other hand, he
longed to know what lay behind all this philandering,
which in any case had been compromising her, and
he felt it his duty as his grandmother's protector and
the representative of the family to ask Yossel straight
out whether his intentions were honourable.

He remembered scenes in novels and plays in which
undesirable suitors were tackled by champions of
convention — scenes in which they were even bought
off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go
to a new land, and how much would he want over and
above his fare ? He led the way without.

' You have lived here all your life, Yossel, have you
not ?' he said, when they were in the village street.

* Where else shall a man live ?J answered Yossel.

4 But have you never had any curiosity to see other
parts ? Would you not like to go and see Vienna ?'

A little gleam passed over Yossel's dingy face.
' No, not Vienna — it is an unholy place — but Prague !
Prague where there is a great Rabbi and the old, old
underground synagogue that God has preserved
throughout the generations.'

' Well, why not go and see it ?' suggested the
artist.

Yossel stared. ' Is it for that you tore me away
from my Talmud ?'

* N — no, not exactly for that,' stammered Schnee-
mann. ' Only seeing you glued to it gave me the idea
what a pity it was that you should not travel and sit
at the feet of great Rabbis ?'

' But how shall I travel to them ? My crutches
cannot walk so far as Prague.'

I

HOLY WEDLOCK 323

'Oh, I'd lend you the money to ride,' said the
artist lightly.

* But I could never repay it.'

4 You can repay me in Heaven. You can give me
a little bit of your G&n I den ' (Paradise).

Yossel shook his head. * And after I had the fare,
how should I live ? Here I make a few Gulden by
writing letters for people to their relatives in America ;
in Prague everybody is very learned ; they don't need
a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might
as well die where I was born.'

' But why can't you die in Palestine ?' cried the
artist with a new burst of hope. ' You shall die in
Palestine, I promise you.'

The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of
joy. 'I shall die in Palestine ?' he asked ecstatically.

' As sure as I live ! I will pay your fare the whole
way, second-class.'

For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on
Yossel's face, then a cloud began to pass across it.

' But how can I take your money ? I am not a
SchnorrerS

Schneemann did not find the question easy to
answer. The more so as Yossel's eagerness to go
and die in Palestine seemed to show that there was
no reason for packing him off. However, he told
himself that one must make assurance doubly sure
and that, even if it was all empty gossip, still he
had stumbled upon a way of making an old man
happy.

' There is no reason why you should take my
money,' he said with an artistic inspiration, ' but
there is every reason why I should buy to myself the

21 — 2

324 GHETTO COMEDIES

Mitzvah (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem.
You see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.'

' So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. * A very
wicked life it is said you lead at Rome.'

' Most true,' said the artist cheerfully.

' It is said also that you break the Second Com-
mandment by making representations of things that
are on sea and land.'

* I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured
the artist.

* Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks
you paint houses — which is not forbidden. But I don't
undeceive her — it would pain her too much.' The
lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's alarm.

' When will you be ready to start ?' he said.

Yossel pondered. ' But to die in Palestine one
must live in Palestine,' he said. * I cannot be certain
that God would take my soul the moment I set foot
on the holy soil.'

The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich
enough to guarantee that Yossel should live in
Palestine, especially if he were an unconscionably long
time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. ' But
there is the Chalukah? he reminded Yossel

' But that is charity.'

' No — it is not charity, it is a sort of university
endowment. It is just to support such old students
as you that these sums are sent from all the world over.
The prayers and studies of our old men in Jerusalem
are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be
to me in particular.'

' True, true,' said Yossel eagerly ; * and life is very
cheap there, I have always heard.'

HOLY WEDLOCK 325

'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the
artist's tongue. But Yossel replied simply :

* May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for
ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in
Jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.'

The artist was moved. Surely, he thought,
struggling between tears and laughter, no undesirable
lover had ever thus been got rid of by the head of the
family. Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.

IV

The news that Yossel was leaving the village bound
for the Holy Land, produced a sensation which quite
obscured his former notoriety as an aspirant to wedlock.
Indeed, those who discussed the new situation most
avidly forgot how convinced they had been that
marriage and not death was the hunchback's goal.
How Yossel had found money for the great adventure
was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of
gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother
herself had been tapped. Her skittish advances had been
taken seriously by Yossel. He had boldly proposed
to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point, it was
said, the old lady had drawn back — she who had led
him so far was not to be thus led. Women are change-
able, it is known, and even when they are old they do
not change. But Yossel had stood up for his rights ;
he had demanded compensation. And his fare to
Palestine was a concession for his injured affections.
It was not many days before the artist met persons

326 GHETTO COMEDIES

who had actually overheard the bargaining between
the Bube and the hunchba'ck.

Meantime Yossel's departure was drawing nigh, and
all those who had relatives in Palestine besieged him
from miles around, plying him with messages, bene-
dictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. And
conversely, there was scarcely a Jewish inhabitant
who had not begged for clods of Palestine earth or
bottles of Jordan water. So great indeed were the
demands that their supply would have constituted a
distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the Sultan,
and dried up the Jordan.

With his grandmother's future thus off his mind,
the artist had settled down to making a picture
of the ruined castle which he commanded from his
bedroom window. But when the through ticket for
Jerusalem came from the agent at Vienna, and he had
brazenly endured Yossel's blessings for the same,
his artistic instinct demanded to see how the Bube
was taking her hero's desertion. As he lifted the latch
he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened,
not on the peaceful scene he expected of the spinster
at her ingle nook, but of a bustling and apparently
rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing menial.
The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved
to be Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches
beside him. Almost as in guilty confusion the hunch-
back hastily closed the sheet containing a huddle of
articles, and tied it into a bundle before the artist's
chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity.
But instantly a flash of explanation came to him.

c Aha, grandmother,' he said, ' I see you too are
sending ^resents to Palestine.'

HOLY WEDLOCK 3*7

The grandmother took snuff uneasily. ' Yes, it is
going to the Land of Israel,' she said.

As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous
heaps on the floor — Yossel and his bundle — he became
aware of a blank in the familiar interior.

1 Why, where is the spinning-wheel ?' he cried.

* I have given it to the widow Rubenstein — I shall
spin no more.'

' And I thought of painting you as a spinster !'
he murmured dolefully. Then a white patch in
the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught
his eye. ' Why, your marriage certificate is gone
too!'

* Yes, I have taken it down.'

' To give to the widow Rubenstein ?'

* What an idea !' said his grandmother seriously.
' It is in the bundle.'

' You are sending it away to Palestine ?'

The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and
removing them with trembling fingers blinked down-
wards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up his crutches,
and propped himself manfully upon them.

' Your grandmother goes with me,' he explained
decisively.

' What !' the artist gasped.

The grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly ;
they had drawn fire from Yossel's. ' And why should
I not go to Palestine too ?' she said.

' But you are so old !'

' The more reason I should make haste if I am to be
luckier than Moses our Master.' She readjusted her
spectacles firmly.

' But the journey is so hard.'

328 GHETTO COMEDIES

' Yossel has wisdom ; he will find the way while
alive as easily as others will roll thither after death.'

' You'll be dead before you get there,' said the
artist brutally.

' Ah, no ! God will not let me die before I touch the
holy soil !'

* You, too, want to die in Palestine ?' cried the
amazed artist.

' And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to
die ? Ah, I forgot — your mother was an Epicurean
with godless tresses ; she did not bring you up in the
true love of our land. But every day for seventy
years and more have I prayed the prayer that my eyes
should behold the return of the Divine Glory to Zion.
That mercy I no longer expect in my own days, inas-
much as the Sultan hardens his heart and will not
give us back our land, not though Moses our Master
appears to him every night, and beats him with his
rod. But at least my eyes shall behold the land of
Israel.'

* Amen !' said Yossel, still propped assertively on
his crutches. The grandson turned upon the inter-
rupter. ' But you can't take her with you ?'

4 Why not ?' said Yossel calmly.

Schneemann "found himself expatiating upon the
responsibility of looking after such an old woman ; it
seemed too absurd to talk of the scandal. That was
left for the grandmother to emphasize.

* Would you have me arrive alone in Palestine ?'
she interposed impatiently. ' Think of the talk it
would make in Jerusalem ! And should I even be
permitted to land ? They say the Sultan's soldiers
stand at the landing-place like the angels at the gates

HOLY WEDLOCK 329

of Paradise with swords that turn every way. But
Yossel is cunning in the customs of the heathen ; he
will explain to the soldiers that he is an Austrian
subject, and that I am his Frau.'

1 What ! Pass you off as his Frau /'

4 Who speaks of passing off ? He could say I was
his sister, as Abraham our Father said of Sarah. But
that was a sin in the sight of Heaven, and therefore as
our sages explain

' It is simpler to be married,' Yossel interrupted.

' Married !' echoed the artist angrily.

* The witnesses are coming to my lodging this after-
noon/ Yossel continued calmly. ' Dovidel and Yitz-
koly from the Beth Hamedrash.'

' They think they are only coming to a farewell
glass of brandy,' chuckled the grandmother. ' But
they will find themselves at a secret wedding.'

1 And to-morrow we shall depart publicly for
Trieste,' Yossel wound up calmly.

'But this is too absurd!' the artist broke in. *I
forbid this marriage !'

A violent expression of amazement overspread the
ancient dame's face, and the tone of the far-away years
came into her voice. ' Silence, Vroomkely, or I'll
smack your face. Do you forget you are talking to
your grandmother ?'

4 1 think Mr. Mandelstein forgets it,' the artist
retorted, turning upon the heroic hunchback. ' Do
you mean to say you are going to marry my grand-
mother ?'

* And why not ?' asked Yossel. * Is there a greater
lover of God in all Galicia ?'

' Hush, Yossel, I am a great sinner.' But her old

330

GHETTO COMEDIES

face was radiant. She turned to her grandson. ' Don't
be angry with Yossel — all the fault is mine. He did
not ask me to go with him to Palestine ; it was I that
asked him.'

6 Do you mean that you asked him to marry you ?'

4 It is the same thing. There is no other way.
How different would it have been had there been any
other woman here who wanted to die in Palestine !
But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven ;
they wear their hair unshorn — they '

' Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.'

e Asked ? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement
Day. For two years I prayed to him, but he always
refused.'

' Then why ?' began the artist.

' Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.'

e Oh, Yenta !' protested Yossel flushing, ' I am a
very sinful man.'

' Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the Bube replied.
' Your iniquity is like your ugliness — some people have
it scattered all over, but you have it all heaped up.
And the heap is called pride.'

' Never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently.
' Why did he not go on refusing you ?'

' I am coming to that. Only you were always so
impatient, Vroomkely. When I was cutting you a
piece of Kuchen, you would snatch greedily at the
crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of
the same clay as you and I. By an oversight the
Almighty sent an angel into the world instead of a man,
but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the All-
High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback.
But when Yossel's father made a match for him with

HOLY WEDLOCK 331

Leah, the rich corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl,
when she was introduced to the bridegroom, could see
only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry out
the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since
that day he curled himself up into his hump, and
nursed a hatred for all women.'

' How can you say that, Yenta ?' Yossel broke in
again.

' Why else did you refuse my money ?' the Bube
retorted. c Twice, ten, twenty times I asked him to
go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as a pig he
keeps grunting " I can't — I've got no money." Sooner
than I should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die
here.'

The artist collapsed upon the bundle ; astonishment,
anger, and self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to
stand under. So this was all his Machiavellian schem-
ing had achieved — to bring about the very marriage
it was meant to avert ! He had dug a pit and fallen
into it himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozen-
offski and Leopold Barstein. He laughed bitterly.

* Nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the Bube
indignantly. ' For I know well how Yossel longed to
go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at last the
All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come
to me and invite me to go with him.'

Here the artist became aware that Yossel's eyes
and lips were signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth,
one published one's good deeds ! He had yet to learn
on whose behalf the hunchback was signalling.

1 So ! You came into a fortune ?' he asked Yossel
gravely.

Yossel looked the picture of misery. The Bube

332

GHETTO COMEDIES

unconsciously cut through the situation. ' A wicked
man gave it to him,' she explained, ' to pray away his
sins in Jerusalem.'

' Indeed !' murmured the artist. ' Anyone you
know ?'

1 Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,'
ambiguously interpolated her anxious protector.

* I don't even know his name,' added the Bube.

* Yossel keeps it hidden.'

* One must not shame a fellow-man/ Yossel urged.

* The sin of that is equal to the sin of shedding blood.'

The grandmother nodded her head approvingly.
' It is enough that the All-High knows his name. But
for such an Epicurean much praying will be necessary.
It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel,
must be that you shall not die very soon, else the
labourer will not be worthy of his hire.'

Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's
clasp. * Be at peace, Yenta ! He will be redeemed
if only by your merits. Are we not one ?'

ELIJAH'S GOBLET

ELIJAH'S GOBLET

AARON BEN AMRAM removed from the great ritual dish
the roasted shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of
the Paschal Sacrifice) and the roasted egg (representa-
tive of the ancient festival-offering in the Temple), and
while his wife and children held up the dish, which
now contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened
cakes, he recited the Chaldaic prelude to the Seder —
the long domestic ceremonial of the Passover Evening.

' This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate
in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come
in and eat ; let all who require come in and celebrate the
Passover. This year here, next year in the land of
Israel ! This year slaves, next year sons of freedom !'

But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave.
White-bearded, clad in a long white robe and a wfiite
skullcap, and throned on white pillows, he made rather
a royal figure, indeed for thfs night of nights conceived
of himself as ' King ' and his wife as ' Queen.'

But ' Queen ' Golda, despite her silk gown and
flowery cap, did not share her consort's majestic mood,
still less the rosy happiness of the children who sat
round this fascinating board. Her heart was full of a
whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the

335

336 GHETTO COMEDIES

father nor all the quaint family choruses could drown.
All very well for the little ones to be unconscious of the
hovering shadow, but how could her husband have
forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the
very year he had led her under the Canopy ?

And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful
legend was gathering again, that the slowly-growing
Jew-hatred had reached a point at which it must find
expression, that the Pritzim (nobles) in their great
houses, and the peasants behind their high palings,
alike sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had
not the Passover Market hummed with the old, old
story of a lost Christian child ? Not murdered yet,
thank God, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy should
be found with signs of violence upon him at this season
of the Paschal Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded
on the Crucifixion ! O God of Abraham, guard us from
these fiends unchained !

But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly
punctuated with cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully
by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle,
was reached, to the children's vast content. They
made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by
annual repetition, over the horseradish that typified
the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic
grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds,
raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of
the bondsmen's mortar ; they relished the eggs sliced
into salt water, and then — the symbols all duly
swallowed — settled down with more prosaic satisfac-
tion to the merely edible meats and fishes, though
even to these the special Passover plates and dishes
and the purified knives and forks lent a new relish.

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 337

By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to
meditate her annual theft of the Afkuman, that seg-
ment of Passover cake under Aaron's pillow, morsels of
which, distributed to each as the final food to be tasted
that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal
Lamb in the ancient Palestinian meal.

II

But Elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table
untasted. Every time the ritual cup-drinking came
round, the children had glanced at the great silver
goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas ! the
brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level.

They found consolation in the thought that the great
moment was still to come — the moment of the third
cup, when, mother throwing open the door, father
would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously
salute an unseen visitor.

True, in other years, though they had almost heard
the rush of wings, the great shining cup had remained
full, and when it was replaced on the white cloth, a
vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had
stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons
could be found to exculpate Elij ah — not omitting their
own sins — and now, when Ben Amram nodded to his
wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe,
credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo.

But the mother's heart was palpitating with another
emotion. A faint clamour in the Polish quarter at the
back, as she replaced the samovar in the kitchen, had

22

338 GHETTO COMEDIES

recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw open the
door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent-
minded enough to be beguiled by her air of obedient
alacrity. Besides, he could see the shut street-door
through the strip of passage. He gestured towards it.

Now she feigned laziness. ' Oh, never mind.'

' David, open the street-door.'

The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have
been too bad of mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep.

* No, no, David !' Golda stopped him. ' It is too
heavy ; he could not undo the bolts and bars.'

' You have barred it ?' Ben Amram asked.
c And why not ? In this season you know how the
heathen go mad like street-dogs.'
' Pooh ! They will not bite us.'

* But, Aaron ! You heard about the lost Christian
child !'

* I have saved many a Christian child, Golda.'

* They will not remember that.'

4 But I must remember the ritual,' And he made a
movement.

* No, no, Aaron ! Listen !'

The shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards
the front of the house. He shrugged his shoulders.
' I hear only the goats bleating.'

She clung to him as he made for the door. c For the
sake of our children !'

* Do not be so childish yourself, my crown !'
1 But I am not childish. Hark !'

He smiled calmly. ' The door must be opened.'
Her fears lent her scepticism. ' It is you that are

childish. You know no Prophet of Redemption will

come through the door,'

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 339

He caressed his venerable beard. { Who knows ?'

' I know. It is a Destroyer, not a Redeemer of
Israel, who will come. Listen ! Ah, God of Abraham !
Do you not hear ?'

Unmistakably the howl of a riotous mob was approach-
ing, mingled with the reedy strains of an accordion.

' Down with the Zhits ! Death to the dirty Jews !'

* God in heaven !' She released her husband, and
ran towards the children with a gesture as of seeking
to gather them all in her arms. Then, hearing the
bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. ' Are you
mad, Aaron ?'

But he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide
the door with his left hand, while his right upheld
Elijah's goblet, and over the ululation of the unseen
mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his Hebrew
welcome to the visitor : ' Baruch habaa /'

Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild
flying figure in a rich furred coat dashed round the
corner and almost into his arms, half-spilling the
wine.

1 In God's name, Reb Aaron !' panted the refugee,
and fell half -dead across the threshold.

The physician dragged him hastily within, and
slammed the door, just as two moujiks — drunken
leaders of the chase — lurched past. The mother, who
had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly
shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry
tore past the house and dwindled in the distance.

Ben Amram raised the white bloody face, and put
Elijah's goblet to the lips. The strange visitor drained
it to the dregs, the clustered children looking on
dazedly. As the head fell back, it caught the light

22 — 2

340 GHETTO COMEDIES

from the festive candles of the Passover board.
The face was bare of hair ; even the side curls were
gone.

' Maimon the Meshummad /' cried the mother,
shuddering back. * You have saved the Apostate.'

* Did I not say the door must be opened ?' replied
Ben Amram gently. Then a smile of humour twitched
his lips, and he smoothed his white beard. ' Maimon
is the only Jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor
drunken peasants to know he was baptized ?'

Despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, David and
his brothers and sisters were secretly pleased to see
Elijah's goblet empty at last.

Ill

Next morning the Passover liturgy rang jubilantly
through the vast, crowded synagogue. No violence
had been reported, despite the passage of a noisy mob.
The Ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire
and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown,
turreted quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out
in great shouts of rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in
their fringed shawls, with quivering hands of supplica-
tion. The Ark of the Law at one end of the great build-
ing, overbrooded by the Ten Commandments and the
perpetual light, stood open to mark a supreme moment
of devotion. Ben Amram had been given the honour
of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad scrolls of
all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood
revealed in solemn splendour.

Through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily-

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 341

clad women looked down on the rocking figures, while
the grace-notes of the cantor on his central dais, and
the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of his male
ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were
indeed angels on high. Suddenly, over the blended
passion of cantor and congregation, an ominous sound
broke from without — the complex clatter of cavalry,
the curt ring of military orders. The swaying figures
turned suddenly as under another wind, the women's
eyes grew astare and ablaze with terror. The great
doors flew open, and — oh, awful, incredible sight — a
squadron of Cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast,
with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a
rattle of ponderous sabres. Their black conical caps
and long beards, their great side-buttoned coats, and
pockets stuffed with protrusive cartridges, their
prancing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a blood-
curdling discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped
figures. The rumble of worship ceased, the cantor,
suddenly isolated, was heard soaring ecstatically ;
then he, too, turned his head uneasily and his roulade
died in his throat.

' Halt !' the officer cried. The moving column froze.
Its bristling length stretched from the central platform,
blocking the aisle, and the courtyard echoed with the
clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed into the school
and the poor-house. The Shamash (beadle) was seen
to front the flamboyant invaders.

' Why does your Excellency intrude upon our
prayers to God ?'

The congregation felt its dignity return. Who
would have suspected Red Judah of such courage —
such apt speech ? Why, the very Rabbi was petrified ;

342 GHETTO COMEDIES

the elders of the Kahal stood dumb. Ben Amram him-
self, their spokesman to the Government, whose pray-
ing-shawl was embroidered with a silver band, and
whose coat was satin, remained immovable between
the pillars of the Ark, staring stonily at the brave
beadle.

* First of all, for the boy's blood !'

The words rang out with military precision, and the
speaker's horse pawed dangerously, as if impatient
for the charge. The men grew death-pale, the women
wrung their hands.

* Aiy vaiT they moaned. * Woe ! woe !'

' What boy ? What blood ?' said the Shamash,
undaunted.

' Don't palter, you rascal ! You know well that a
Christian child has disappeared.'

The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the Shamash, up-
lifted a quavering voice.

' The child will be found of a surety — if, indeed, it
is lost,' he added with bitter sarcasm. * And surely
your Excellency cannot require the boy's blood at our
hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed spilt.'

* You misunderstand me, old dog — or rather you
pretend to, old fox. The boy's blood is here — it is
kept in this very synagogue — and I have come for it.'

The Shamash laughed explosively. ' Oh, Ex-
cellency !'

The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the con-
tagion of glad relief. It rang with strange laughter.

4 There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,'
said the Rabbi, his eyes a-twinkle, ' save what runs in
living veins.'

' We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 343

' That !' The Shamash grinned — almost inde-
corously. c That is the Consecration wine — red as
my beard,' quoth he.

4 Ha ! ha ! the red Consecration wine !' repeated the
synagogue in a happy buzz, and from the women's
gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual
explanation.

' We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imper-
turbability, and the happy hum died into a cold heart-
fairitness, fraught with an almost incredulous appre-
hension of some devilish treachery, some mock dis-
covery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies
of fanatical creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the
law.

The officer's voice rose again. * Let no one leave
the synagogue — man, woman, or child. Kill anyone
who attempts to escape.'

The screams of fainting women answered him
from above, but impassively he urged his horse along
the aisle that led to the Ark ; its noisy hoofs trampled
over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened
the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a
bottle, hideously red.

' Consecration wine, eh ?' he said grimly.

4 What else, Excellency ?' stoutly replied the
Shamash, who had followed him.

A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. * Drink
me a mouthful !'

As the Shamash took the bottle, with a fearless
shrug of the shoulders, every eye strained painfully
towards him, save in the women's gallery, where many
covered their faces with their hands. Every breath
was held.

344 GHETTO COMEDIES

Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red
Judah gulped down a draught. But as the liquid met
his palate a horrible distortion overcame his smile, his
hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle, and
with a hoarse cry, ' Mercy, O God !' he fell before the
Ark, foaming at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a
vivid pool.

' Hear, O Israel !' A raucous cry of horror rose from
all around, and was echoed more shrilly from above.
Almighty Father ! The Jew-haters had worked their
fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the
women, shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, ' Ai,
vai r * Gewalt /' The Rabbi shook as with palsy.
' vSatan ! Satan !' chattered through his teeth.

But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping
over the scarlet stain.

' A soldier should know blood, Excellency !' the
physician said quietly.

The officer's face relaxed into a faint smile.

' A soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. And,
indeed, the spicy reek of the Consecration wine was
bewildering the nearer bystanders.

4 Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a
fit,' said the physician, raising the beadle's head by
its long red beard.

His Excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his
saddle, and cried a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to
turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold
thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the con-
gregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last
conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only
the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their
actual passage. A deep silence hung for a moment

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 345

like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of
ejaculations.

But Ben Amram's voice rang through the din.
c Brethren !' He rose from wiping the frothing lips
of the stricken creature, and his face had the fiery
gloom of a seer's, and the din died under his uplifted
palm. ' Brethren, the Lord hath saved us !'

' Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever !'
The Rabbi began the phrase, and the congregation
caught it up in thunder.

' But hearken how. Last night at the Seder, as I
opened the door for Elijah, there entered Maimon the
Meshummad ! 'Twas he quaffed Elijah's cup !'

There was a rumble of imprecations.

' A pretty Elijah !' cried the Rabbi.

' Nay, but God sends the Prophet of Redemption
in strange guise,' the physician said. ' Listen !
Maimon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant he
was a deserter from our camp. When he found how
I had saved him and dressed his bleeding face, when
he saw the spread Passover table, his child-soul came
back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the
diabolical plot against our community, hatched through
his instrumentality by some desperate debtors ; how,
having raised the cry of a lost child, they were to have
its blood found beneath our Holy Ark as in some mystic
atonement. And while you all lolled joyously at the
Seder table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the
Consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and
destroy us all.'

A shudder of awe traversed the synagogue.

' But the Guardian of Israel, who permits us to
sleep on Passover night without night-prayer, neither

346 GHETTO COMEDIES

slumbers nor sleeps. Maimon had bribed the Shamash
to let him enter the synagogue and replace the Con-
secration wine.'

' Red Judah !' It was like the growl of ten thousand
tigers. Some even precipitated themselves upon the
writhing wretch.

' Back ! back !' cried Ben Amram. ' The Almighty
has smitten him.'

' " Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," ' quoted the
Rabbi solemnly.

' Hallelujah !' shouted a frenzied female voice, and
* Hallelujah !' the men responded in thunder.

' Red Judah had no true belief in the God of Israel,'
the physician went on.

4 May he be an atonement for us all !' interrupted
the Cantor.

' Amen !' growled the congregation.

* For a hundred roubles and the promise of personal
immunity Red Judah allowed Maimon the Meshummad
to change the bottles while all Israel sat at the Seder.
It was because the mob saw the Meshummad stealing
out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for a
pious Jew. Behold, brethren, how the Almighty
weaves His threads together. After the repentant
sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the
Cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community
assembled helpless in synagogue, I deemed it best
merely to get the bottles changed back again. The
false bottle contained only bullock's blood, but it
would have sufficed to madden the multitude. Since
it is I who have the blessed privilege of supplying the
Consecration wine it was easy enough to give Maimon
another bottle, and armed with this he roused the

ELIJAH'S GOBLET 347

Shamash in the dawn, pretending he had now obtained
true human blood. A rouble easily procured him the
keys again, and when he brought me back the bullock's
blood, I awaited the sequel in peace.'

' Praise ye the Lord, for He is good,' sang the
Cantor, carried away.

' For His mercy endureth for ever,' replied the
congregation instinctively.

* I did not foresee the Shamash would put himself
so brazenly forward to hide his guilt, or that he would
be asked to drink. But when the Epikouros (atheist)
put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste blood, and
found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once
that the God of Israel was truly in heaven, that He had
wrought a miracle and changed the blood back to wine.'

' And such a miracle God wrought verily,' cried the
Rabbi, grasping the physician's hand, while the
synagogue resounded with cries of ' May thy strength
increase,' and the gallery heaved frantically with bless-
ings and congratulations.

'What wonder,' the physician wound up, as he bent
again over the ghastly head, with its pious ringlets
writhing like red snakes, ' that he fell stricken by
dread of the Almighty's wrath !'

And while men were bearing the convulsive form
without, the Cantor began to recite the Grace after
Redemption. And then the happy hymns rolled out,
and the choristers cried ' Pom !' and a breath of
jubilant hope passed through the synagogue. The
mighty hand and the outstretched arm which had
redeemed Israel from the Egyptian bondage were still
hovering over them, nor would the Prophet Elijah for
ever delay to announce the ultimate Messiah.

THE HIRELINGS

THE HIRELINGS

CROWDED as was the steamer with cultured Americans
invading Europe, few knew that Rozenoffski was on
board, or even that Rozenoffski was a pianist. The
name, casually seen on the passengers' list, conveyed
nothing but a strong Russian and a vaguer Semitic
flavour, and the mere outward man, despite a leonine
head, was of insignificant port and somewhat shuffling
gait, and drew scarcely a second glance.

He would not have had it otherwise, he told himself,
as he paced the almost deserted deck after dinner —
it was a blessing to escape from the perpetual adulation
of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls — but every
wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after
his American failure.

Not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his
failure ; he had not put himself to the vulgar tests.
His American expedition had followed the lines recom-
mended to him by friendly connoisseurs — to come
before the great public, if at all, only after being
launched by great hostesses at small parties ; to which
end he had provided himself with unimpeachable in-
troductions to unexceptionable ladies from irresistible

352 GHETTO COMEDIES

personalities — a German Grand Duke, a Bulgarian
Ambassador, Countesses, both French and Italian, and
even a Belgian princess. But to his boundless amaze-
ment— for he had always heard that Americans were
wax before titles — not one of the social leaders had been
of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of
the Chicago Palace, to whom he had been recommended
by the Belgian princess. He had penetrated through one
or two esoteric doors, only to find himself outside them
again. Not once had he been asked to play. It was
some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor
prophet of European music-rooms that he was being
shut out, still longer before it permeated to his brain
that he had been shut out as a Jew !

Those barbarous Americans, so far behind Europe
after all ! Had they not even discovered that art levels
all ranks and races ? Poor bourgeois money-mongers
with their mushroom civilization. It was not even as if
he were really a Jew. Did they imagine he wore phy-
lacteries or earlocks, or what ? His few childish years
in the Russian Pale — what were they to the long
years of European art and European culture ? And
even if in Rome or Paris he had foregathered with Jews
like Schneemann or Leopold Barstein, it was to the
artist in them he had gravitated, not the Jew. Did
these Yankee ignoramuses suppose he did not share
their aversion from the gaberdine or the three brass
balls ? Oh the narrow-souled anti-Semites !

The deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the
forgotten rugs and novels, tidying the deck for the
night, but still the embittered musician tramped to
and fro under the silent stars. Only from the smoking-
room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously

THE HIRELINGS 353

selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in
discord with the solemnity of sky and sea, and the
artist was newly jarred at this vulgar gaiety flung in
the face of the spacious and starry mystery of the night.
And these jocose, heavy-jo wled, smoke-soused gamblers
were the Americans whose drawing-rooms he would
contaminate ! He recalled the only party to which he
had been asked — ' To meet the Bright Lights ' — and
which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public
entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall,
and himself — with the other Bright Lights — planted on
a platform and made to perform without a fee. The
mean vulgarians ! But perhaps it was better they
had left him untainted with their dollars — better, com-
paratively poor though he was, that America should
have meant pure loss to him. He had at least kept the
spiritual satisfaction of despising the despiser, the dig-
nity of righteous resentment, the artist's pride in the
profitless. And this riot of ugliness and diamonds and
third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to
which, forsooth, the Jew could not be permitted access !
The aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him,
and the face between whose prominent teeth it was
stuck loomed vividly in the glare of an electric light.
Rozenoffski recognised those teeth. He had seen
countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they
not almost hold the globe in their grip ? This, then
was the notorious multi-millionaire, ' the Napoleon in
dollars,' as a wit had summed him up ; and the first
sight of Andrew P. Wilhammer almost consoled the
player for his poverty. Who, even for an imperial
income, would bear the burden of those grotesque teeth,
protruding like a sample of wares in a dentist's show-

23

354 GHETTO COMEDIES

case ? But as the teeth came nearer and the great
rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of
the notorious incisors affected him less than their
carnivorous capacity — he felt himself almost swallowed
up by this monstrous beast of prey, so admirably
equated to our small day of large things, to that en-
vironment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but
a little singing-bird. The long-forgotten word Rishus
came suddenly into his mind — was not the man's anti-
Semitism as obtruded as his teeth ? — Rishus, that
wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had
become almost a synonym for Christianity. He had
left the thought behind him, as he had left the Hebrew
word, while he went sailing up into the rosy ether of
success, and Rishus had sunk into the mere panic-word
of the Ghetto's stunted brood, shrinking and quivering
before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a mis-
understood world, if it was not, indeed, rather a word
conveniently cloaking from themselves a multitude of
their own sins. But now, as incarnated in this million-
aire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden
solidity, to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing
and rending significance.

Yes, in very sooth — he remembered it suddenly —
was it not this man's wife on whom he had built his
main hopes ? Was she not the leader of musical
America, to whom the Belgian princess had given him
the scented and crested note of introduction which was
to open to him all doors and all ears ? Was it not in her
marvellous marble music-room — one of the boasts of
Chicago — that he had mentally seen himself enthroned
as the lord of the feast ? And instead of these Olym-
pian visions, lo ! a typewritten note to clench his fist

THE HIRELINGS 355

over — a note from a secretary regretting that the state
of Mrs. Wilhammer's health forbade the pleasure of
receiving a maestro with such credentials. Rishus — •
Rishus indubitable !

II

Turning with morbid interest to look after the re-
treating millionaire, he found him in converse with a
feminine figure at the open door of a deck-cabin. Could
this be the great She, the arbitress of art ? He moved
nearer. Why, this was but a girl — nay, unless his
instinct was at fault, a Jewish girl — a glorious young
Jewess, of that radiant red-haired type which the
Russian Pale occasionally flowered with. What was
she doing with this Christian Colossus ? He tried vainly
to see her left hand ; the mere possibility that she might
be Mrs. Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct.
Wilhammer disappeared within — the relation was ob-
viously intimate — but the girl still stood at the door,
a brooding magical figure.

Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak
to her, but he conquered the abnormal and incorrect
impulse, contenting himself to walk past her with a
side-glance, while at the end of the deck-promenade,
instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched
his path round to the windy side. After some minutes
of buffeting he returned chilled to his prior pacing
ground. She was still there, but had moved under the
same electric light which had illuminated Wilhammer's
face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried
him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down

23-^2

356 GHETTO COMEDIES

those radiant cheeks. A slight exclamation came in-
voluntarily from him ; the girl, even more startled to
be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the letter — a puff
of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped
at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descend-
ing sailed stern wards. He gave chase, stumbling over
belated chairs and deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in
his clutch, and as he handed it to the agitated owner
whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a thrill that
the characters were cursive Hebrew.

' How can I zank you, sir !' Her Teutonic-touched
American gave him the courage to reply gallantly in
German :

' By letting me help you more seriously.'
' Ach, mein Herr ' — she jumped responsive] y into
German — ' it was for joy I was crying, not sorrow.'
As her American was Germanic, so was her German
like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding
to the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's
heart within his breast. He noted now with satisfac-
tion that her fingers were bare of rings.

' Then I am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply.
She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back to-
wards her cabin. ' With us Jews,' she said, ' tears and
laughter are very close.'

'Us Jews !' He winced a little It was so long since
he had been thus classed to his face by a stranger.
But perhaps he had misinterpreted her phrase ; it was
her way of referring to her race, not necessarily to his.
'It is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily.
But he only opened wider the flood-gates of race-
feeling.

' Yes,' she replied simply, ' and such a heaven of

THE HIRELINGS 357

stars is beginning to arise over the night of Israel. Is
it not wonderful — the transformation of our people ?
When I left Russia as a girl — so young,' she interpo-
lated with a sad smile, ' that I had not even been
married — I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a
cringing, cowering, contorted people — I shall never
forget the panic in our synagogue when a troop of
Cossacks rode in with a bogus blood-accusation. Now
it is a people alive with ideas and volitions ; the young
generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger,
dies to execute them. Our Bund is the soul of the
Russian revolution ; our self-defence bands are bringing
back the days of Judas Maccabaeus. In the olden times
of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray ;
now they march to the fight like men.5

They had arrived at her door, and she ended sud-
denly. The musician, fascinated, feared she was about
to fade away within.

' But Jews can't fight !' he cried, half -incredulous,
half to arrest her.

' Not fight !' She held up the Hebrew letter.
6 They have scouts, ambulance corps, orderlies, sur-
geons, everything — my cousin David Ben Amram, who
is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a
large three-story house inhabited by the families of
factory-labourers who were at work when the pogrom
broke out. The poor frenzied women and children
had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour,
and hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My
cousin had to climb to their defence over the neigh-
bouring tiles and through a window in the roof. Soon
the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans
in devilish league. With his one Browning revolver

358 GHETTO COMEDIES

David held them all at bay, firing from every window
of the house in turn, so as to give the besiegers an
impression of a large defensive force. At last his
cartridges were exhausted — to procure cartridges is
the greatest difficulty of our self-defence corps — they
began battering in the big front-door. David, seeing
further resistance was useless, calmly drew back the
bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried :
' Back ! back ! They have bombs !' and rushed into
the street, as if to escape the explosion. The others
followed wildly, and in the panic David ran down a
dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post of
defence. Though the door stood open, and the cower-
ing inhabitants were at their mercy, the assailants,
afraid to enter, remained for over an hour at a safe
distance firing at the house, till it was riddled with
bullets. They counted nearly two hundred the next
day, embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms.
And not a thing had been stolen — not a hooligan had
dared enter. But David is only a type of the young
generation — there are hundreds of Davids equally
ready to take the field against Goliath. And shall I not
rejoice, shall I not exult even unto tears ?' Her eyes
glowed, and the musician was kindled to equal fire.
It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than
Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own.
* The Pale that I left,' she went on, ' was truly a prison.
But now — now it will be the forging-place of a regener-
ated people ! Oh, I am counting the days till I can
be back !'

' You are going back to Russia !' he gasped.

He had the sensation of cold steel passing through
his heart. The pogroms, which had been as remote to

THE HIRELINGS 359

him as the squabbles of savages in Central Africa,
became suddenly vivid and near. And even vivider
and nearer that greater danger — the heroic Cousin
David !

' How can I live away from Russia at such a
moment ?' she answered quietly. ' Who or what needs
me in America ?'

1 But to be massacred !' he cried incoherently.

She smiled radiantly. 4 To live and die with my own
people.'

The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime
jet ; he was like to crying, ' Thy people shall be my
people,' but all he found himself saying was, * You
must not, you must not ; what can a girl like you do ?'

A bell rang sharply from the cabin.

* I must go to my mistress. Gute Nacht, mein Herr /'

His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wil-
hammer's hireling !

Ill

The wind freshened towards the middle of the night,
and Rozenoffski, rocking in his berth, cursed his en-
counter with the red-haired romanticist who had stirred
up such a pother in his brain that he had not been able
to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that
he suffered physically from the sea ; he was merely
afraid of it. The shuddering and groaning of the
ship found an echo in his soul. He could not shake
off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. At in-
tervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetful-
ness in translating into sound his sense of the mystic,

360 GHETTO COMEDIES

masterless waste in which the continents swim like
islands, but music was soon swallowed up in terror.

4 No,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery.
4 When I am safe on shore again, I shall weave my
symphony of the sea.'

Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a
Jewish Joan of Arc who — turned Admiral — recaptured
Zion from her battleship, to the sound of Psalms droned
by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see
her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to
meet a lady's maid in the unrom antic daylight, the
restlessness she had engendered remained, replacing
the settled bitterness which was all he had brought
back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness
drove him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and
his fever sought to work itself off in a fury of practice.
But the inner turbulence persisted, and the new
thoughts clung round the old music. He was playing
Schumann's Fantasiestucke, but through the stormy
passion of In der Nacht he saw the red hair of the heroic
Jewess, and into the wistful, questioning Warum in-
sinuated itself not the world-question, but the Jewish
question — the sad, unending Jewish question — surging
up again and again in every part of the globe, as Schu-
mann's theme in every part of the piano — the same
haunting musical figure, never the same notes exactly,
yet essentially always the same, the wistful, questioning
Warum. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore
wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse ?

Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer
alone — forms were seated at the tables on the fixed
dining-chairs, though there was no meal but his music ;
and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other fellow-

THE HIRELINGS 361

passengers entered into his consciousness, some stand-
ing about, others hovering on the stairs, and still others
stealing in on reverent tip-toe and taking favourable
seats. His breast filled with bitter satisfaction.

So they had to come, the arrogant Americans ; they
had to swarm like rats to the pied piper. He could
draw them at will, the haughty heathen — draw them
by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of ivory.
Lo, they were coming, more and more of them !
Through the corner of his eye he espied the figures
drifting in from the corridors, peering in spellbound at
the doors.

With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his
morbid mood, and plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A,
his fingers frolicking all over the board, bent on a
dominating exhibition of technique. As he stopped,
there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave
a masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head
in dazed bewilderment. Was he not then alone ?
1 Gott im Himmel /' he murmured, and, furiously banging
down the piano-lid, stalked from these presumptuous
mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.

But the next afternoon found him again at the public
piano, devoting all the magic of his genius to charming
a contemptible Christendom. He gave them Beet-
hoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled
to them the vast treasures of his art and memory.
And very soon, lo ! the Christian rats were pattering
back again, only more wisely and cautiously. They
came crawling from every part of the ship's compass.
Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from
applause. In vain. An enraptured greenhorn
shouted ' Encore !' The musician awoke from his

362 GHETTO COMEDIES

trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines ; then, as the
presence of listeners registered itself upon his expres-
sive countenance, he rose again — but this time as more
in sorrow than in anger — and stalked sublimely up the
swarming stairs.

It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to
warn all comers as to the habits of the great unknown,
who could only beat his music out if he imagined him-
self unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon advance
upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was
passed to the little army of music-lovers. Silently the
rats gathered, scurrying in on noiseless paws, stealing
into the chairs, swarming about the doorways, pricking
up their ears in the corridors. And through the awful
hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-
oblivion till the day began to wane, and the stewards
to appear with the tea-cups.

And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his
resentment against this complacent Christendom which
took so much from the Jew and gave so little. ' Shy-
locks !' he would mutter between his clenched teeth
as he played — * Shylocks all !'

IV

With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the
silent deck each night in the hope of again meeting the
red-haired Jewess. He had soon recovered from her
menial office ; indeed, the paradox of her position in so
anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in
her. He wondered if she ever listened to his playing,

THE HIRELINGS 363

or had realized that she had entertained an angel
unawares.

But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor
was her mistress more visible. The Wilhammers kept
royally to themselves in their palatial suite, though the
husband sometimes deigned to parade his fangs in the
smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won
heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate
night of the voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second
glimpse of his red-haired muse. He had started his
nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for the
inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had
sucked the loungers from their steamer-chairs. He
had himself, of course, been approached by the pro-
gramme-organizer, a bouncing actress from 'Frisco,
with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hope-
lessly with the mysterious sarcasm : ' To meet the
Bright Lights ?' And his reward was to have the deck
and the heavens almost to himself, and presently to
find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there
she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window.
He guessed the mistress was out for once — presumably
at the concert. His heart beat faster as he came to a
standstill, yet the reminder that she was a lady's maid
brought an involuntary note of condescension into his
voice.

' I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn't been keeping you
too imprisoned ?' he said.

She smiled faintly. ' Not so close as Neptune has
kept her.'

' 111 ?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfac-
tion.

' It is curious and even consoling to see the limita-

364 GHETTO COMEDIES

tions of Croesus,' she replied. ' But she is lucky — she
just recovered in time.'

* In time for what ?'

* Can't you hear ?'

Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano
had been rending the air throughout, but they had
scarcely penetrated through his exaltation. He now
shuddered.

' Do you mean it is she singing ?'

The girl laughed outright. ' She sing ! No, no, she
is a sensitive receiver. She receives ; she gives out
nothing. She exploits her soul as her husband ex-
ploits the globe. There isn't a sensation or an emotion
she denies herself — unless it is painful. It was to
escape the concert that she has left her couch — and
sought refuge in a friend's cabin. You see, here sound
travels straight from the dining-hall, and a false note,
she says, gives her nerve-ache.'

' Then she can't return till the close of the concert,'
he said eagerly. ' Won't you come outside and walk a
bit under this beautiful moon ?'

She came out without a word, with the simplicity of a
comrade.

' Yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, ' and very soon
I shall be in Russia.'

' But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then ?'
he asked, with a sudden thought, wondering that it
had never occurred to him before.

' Of course not ! I only joined her for this voyage.
I have to work my passage, you see, and Providence,
on the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs. Wilhammer of
her maid.'

' Oh !' he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse

THE HIRELINGS 365

was going back to her social pedestal. 4 But you must
have found it humiliating,' he said.

4 Humiliating ?' She laughed cheerfully. ' Why
more than manicuring her ?'

The muse shivered again on the pedestal.

1 Manicuring ?' he echoed in dismay.

4 Sure !' she laughed in American. ' When, after a
course of starvation and medicine at Berne University,
I found I had to get a new degree for America . . .'

' You are a doctor ?' he interrupted.

' And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-
maid.'

She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight
reminded him of a rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic
enough, however, was what she went on to tell him of
her struggle for life by day and for learning by night.
1 Of course, I could only attend the night medical school.
I lived by lining cloaks with fur ; my bed was the corner
of a room inhabited by a whole family. A would-be
graduate could not be seen with bundles ; for fetching
and carrying the work my good landlady extorted
twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was
slack I cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter,
became a "hello girl"— at a telephone, you know —
reported murder cases — anything, everything.'

4 Manicuring,' he recalled tenderly.

' Manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. ' And you ask
me if it is humiliating to wait upon an artistic seasick
lady !'

4 Artistic !' he sneered. His heart was full of pity
and indignation.

4 As surely as sea-sick !' she rejoined laughingly.
4 Why are you prejudiced against her ?'

366 GHETTO COMEDIES

He flushed. ' Prej -prejudiced ?' he stammered.
1 Why should I be prejudiced ? From all I hear it's
she that's prejudiced. It's a wonder she took a Jewess
into her service.'

' Where's the wonder ? Don't the Southerners have
negro servants ?' she asked quietly.

His flush deepened. ' You compare Jews to
negroes !'

4 1 apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at
least Liberia. There is a black President, a black Par-
liament. We have nothing, nothing !'

' We !' Again that ambiguous plural. But he still
instinctively evaded co-classification.

'Nothing ?' he retorted. ' I should have said every-
thing. Every gift of genius that Nature can shower
from her cornucopia.'

' Jewish geniuses !' Her voice had a stinging inflec-
tion. '• Don't talk to me of our geniuses ; it is they that
have betrayed us. Every other people has its great
men ; but our great men — they belong to every other
people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for
our putrid remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes
and dance to the measures of the heathen. They build
and paint ; they write and legislate. But never a song
of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a
law of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah ! What are
they but hirelings ?'

Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and en-
kindled him. Yes, it was true. He, too, was but a
hireling. But he would become a Master ; he would go
back — back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess
should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself
free for her. But ere he could pour out his soul, the

THE HIRELINGS

367

bouncing San Franciscan actress appeared suddenly at
his elbow, risking a last desperate assault, discharging
a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski
repelled the attack savagely, but before he could ex-
haust the enemy's volubility his red-haired companion
had given him a friendly nod and smile, and retreated
into her shrine of duty.

V

He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out
their future together ; her redemption from her hireling
status, their joint work for their people. He was no
longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of nothing —
not even of the pogroms that awaited them in Russia.
Russia itself became dear to him again — the beautiful
land of his boyhood, whose birds and whispering leaves
and waters had made his earliest music.

But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories.
When he went almost mechanically to the piano on
the last afternoon, all these slumbering forces wakened
in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody
to which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his
audience. When gradually he became aware of the
incongruity, it did but intensify his inspiration. Let
the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music ! But soon
all self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in
his deeper self.

It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through
his obedient ringers ; it held the wistful chants of
ancient ritual, the festival roulades and plaintive yearn-

368 GHETTO COMEDIES

ings of melodious cantors, the sing-song augmentation
of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses,
the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darken-
ing Sabbath twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and
sobbings of penitence, the long-drawn notes of the ram's
horn pealing through the Terrible Days, the passionate
proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of
heaven. And fused with these merely physical
memories, there flowed into the music the peace of
Sabbath evenings and shining candles, the love and
wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic
legend, the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw
winter dawns, the holy joy of the promised Zion, when
God would wipe away the tears from all faces.

There were tears to be wiped from his own face when
he ended, and he wiped them brazenly, unresentful of
the frenzied approval of the audience, which now let
itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and because this
must be the last performance. All his vanity, his artistic
posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He did
not shut the piano ; he sat brooding a moment or two
in tender reverie. Suddenly he perceived his red-haired
muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered him at last,
knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot,
was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But why
was she mute ? Why was she tendering this scented
letter ? Was it because she could not trust herself to
speak before the crowd ? He tore open the delicate
envelope. Himmel ! what was this ? Would the
maestro honour Mrs. Wilhammer by taking tea in her
cabin ?

He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respect-
.". ful and silent.

THE HIRELINGS 369

'Did you not hear what I was playing?' he mur-
mured.

' Oh yes — a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly.
6 They publish it on the East Side, nicht wahr ?'

1 East Side ?' He was outraged. * I know nothing
of East Side.' Her absolute unconsciousness of his
spiritual tumult, her stolidity before this spectacle of
his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance of
his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the
heroism of a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and
did not say, jarred upon his quivering nerves, chilled
his high emotion. ' Will you say I shall have much
pleasure ?' he added coldly.

The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozen-
offski went mechanically to his cabin, scarcely seeing the
worshippers he plodded through ; presently he became
aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his best
frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement.

Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A
voice — of another sweetness — cried ' Come !' and in-
stantly he had the sensation that his touch on the
handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate
electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a
rustling tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of pat-
chouli, and a flood of compliment.

' So delightful of you to come — I know you men of
genius are f avouches — it was awfully insolent of me, I
know, but you have forgiven me, haven't you ?'

' The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured
in German.

' Ach, so you are a German,' she replied in the same
tongue. ' I thought no American or Englishman
could have so much diving fire. You see, mein Herr,

24

370 GHETTO COMEDIES

I do not even know your name — only your genius.
Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music,
but I might never have had the courage to thank
you had you not played that marvellous thing just
now — such delicious heartbreak, such adorable gaiety,
and now and then the thunder of the gods ! I'm
afraid you'll think me very ignorant — it wasn't Grieg,
was it ?'

He looked uncomfortable. ' Nothing so good, I fear
— a mere impromptu of my own.'

' Your own !' She clapped her jewelled hands in
girlish delight. ' Oh, where can I get it ?'

' East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply ;
but he crushed her down, and replied uneasily : ' You
can't get it. It just came to me this afternoon. It
came — and ji has gone.'

6 What a pity !' But she was visibly impressed by
this fecundity and riotous extravagance of genius.
4 1 do hope you will try to remember it.'

' Impossible — it was just a mood.'

1 And to think of all the other moods I seem to have
missed ! Why have I>*lot heard you in America ?'

He grew red. ' I — I haven't been playing there,'
he murmured. ' You see, I'm not much known outside
a few European circles.' Then, summoning up all his
courage, [he threw down his name ' Rozenoffski ' like
a bomb, and the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor
of apprehension. But no explosion followed, save of
enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so lurid to his
own memory, had left no impress on hers.

' Oh, but America must know you, Herr Rozenoffski.
You must promise me to come back in the fall, give
me the glory of launching you.' And, seeing the cloud

THE HIRELINGS 371

on his face, she cried : ' You must, you must, you
must !' clapping her hands at each c must.'

He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety
lest she should remember.

' You have never heard of me, of course,' she per-
sisted humbly ; ' but positively everybody has played at
my hous^ in Chicago.'

' Ach so /' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinter-
preted and magnified the attitude of these Americans ?
Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer had really been
too ill to see him ? She looked frail and feverish
behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even
seen his letter ? had her secretary presumed to guard
her from Semitic invaders ? Or was she deliberately
choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness ? In any
case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought ;
it would be the silliest of social blunders to recall that
he had already been rejected.

c It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensa-
tion,' pleaded the temptress.

' I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to
return this autumn,' he replied tactfully.

4 Do you take sugar ?' she retorted unexpectedly ;
then, as she handed him his cup, she smiled archly
into his eyes. ' You can't shake me off, you know ;
I shall follow you about Europe — to all your con-
certs.'

When he left her — after inscribing his autograph, his
permanent Munich address, and the earliest possible date
for his Chicago concert, in a dainty diary brought in by
her red-haired maid — his whole being was swelling, ex-
panding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism
that had suddenly retwined itself round him ; he had got

24 — 2

372 GHETTO COMEDIES

back again from the fusty conventicles and the sunless
Ghettos — back to spacious salons and radiant hostesses
and the great free life of art. He drew deep breaths
of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly
with pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a
renewed sense of the human brotherhood. Rishus,
forsooth !

SAMOOBORON A

SAMOOBORON A

MILOVKA was to be the next place reddened on the map
of Holy Russia. The news of the projected Jewish
massacre in this little Polish town travelled to the
Samooborona (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern
Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who
had had a drop of blood too much. It appeared that
Milovka, though remote from the great centres of dis-
turbance, had begun to seethe with political activity,
and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was neces-
sary to show by a first-class massacre that true Russian
men were still loyal to God and the Czar. Milovka lay
off the pogrom route, and had not of itself caught the
contagion ; careful injection of the virus was necessary.
Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and con-
sequently harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood.
But in revenge the pogrom would be easier ; the Jewish
quarter formed a practically separate town ; no asking
of dvorniks (janitors) to point out the Jewish apart-
ments, no arming one's self with photographs of the
victims ; one had but to run amuck among these low
wooden houses, the humblest of which doubtless oozed
with inexhaustible subterranean wealth.

375

376 GHETTO COMEDIES

David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to
Milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. He
carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a
violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges,
was' an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter
was just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over
the broad plains, and as David's train carried him
towards Milovka, his heart swelled with thoughts of
the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regene-
rated Young Israel. But the journey was long.
Towards the end he got into conversation with an old
Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in the general
political effervescence, made a long lament over the
good old days of serfdom. ' Then, one had not to
think — one ate and drank. Now, it is all toil and
trouble.'

' But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,'
David reminded him.

' He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with
dignity.

David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss
the rod. But it was not even a nobleman's rod ; any
moujik, any hooligan, could wield it. But, thank
Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away — killed
by the pogroms. It was their one virtue.

At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and
told his Jewish driver to take him to the best inn.
Seated astride the old-fashioned bench of the vehicle,
and grasping his violin-case like a loving musician, as
they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the
subject of the Jewish massacres.

lBe /' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders.
' We are in Goluth (exile) !' He spoke with resignation,

SAMOOBORONA 377

but not with apprehension, and David perceived at
once that Milovka would not be easy to arouse. As
every man thought every other man mortal, so Milovka
regarded the massacres as a terrible reality — for other
towns. It was no longer even shocked ; Kishineff Had
been a horror almost beyond belief, but Jew-massacres
had since become part of the natural order, which babes
were born into.

II

The landlord shook his head.

' All our rooms are full.'

David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the
dirty, mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table,
and at the host's brats playing on the floor. If this
was the best, what in Heaven's name awaited him
elsewhere ?

4 For how long ?' he asked.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver.
4 Am I the All-knowing ?'

He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex
that would have professed piety. Its square cut indi-
cated to the younger generation that he was a man of the
world, in touch with the times ; to the old its material
and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual ortho-
doxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat
and drink.

' But how many rooms have you ?' inquired
David.

' And how many shall I have but one ?' protested
the landlord.

378 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 Only one room !' David turned upon the driver.
' And you said this was the best inn ! I suppose it's
your brother-in-law's.'

' And what do I make out of it, if it is ?' answered
the driver. * You see he can't take you.'

' Then why did you bring me ?'

' Because there is no room anywhere else either.'

' What !' David stared.

* Law of Moses !' corroborated the landlord good-
humouredly, * you've just come at the recruiting. The
young men have flocked here from all the neighbouring
villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen
peasants in all the Jewish inns — eating kosher,' he
added with a chuckle.

David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if
this was so, the pogrom would probably be postponed
till the Christian conscripts had been packed off to
their regiments or the lucky ones back to their villages.
He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish
corps. Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia
and he would be recruiting simultaneously. Still,
where was he to sleep ?

4 You can have the lezhanka,' said the host, following
his thoughts.

David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well,
there were worse beds in winter than the top of a stove.
And perhaps to bestow himself and his violin in such
very public quarters would be the safest way of divert-
ing police attention. ' Conspirators, please copy,' he
thought, with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired.
He could refresh himself here ; the day was yet young ;
time enough to find a better lodging.

1 Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.

SAMOOBORONA 379

* Tea ?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.
' Haven't you a drop of vodka ?'

The landlord held up hands of horror. ' Mono-
polka ?' (monopoly), he cried.

' Haven't they left any Jewish licenses ?' asked
David.

' Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka,
like the baptized Benjamin,' said the landlord with
grim humour. He added hastily : ' But his inn is even
fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'

It appeared that the dinner was already over, and
David could obtain nothing but half-warmed remains.
However, hunger and hope gave sauce to the miserable
meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to
pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.

* But you will not get violin lessons from any of
them,' his host warned him. ' Tinowitz the corn-factor
has daughters who are said to read Christian story-
books, but is it likely he will risk their falling in love
with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like
a Christian's ? Not that I share his prejudices, of
course. I have seen the great world, and understand
that it is possible to carry a handkerchief on the
Sabbath and still be a good man.'

' I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David
bluntly, ' but in shooting.'

' Shooting ?' The landlord stared. ' Aren't you a
Jew, then, sir ? I beg your pardon.' His voice had
suddenly taken on the same ring as when he addressed
the Poritz (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous famili-
arity was gone.

4 SalaMi /' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew,
and laughed at the man's bemused visage. * Don't

38o GHETTO COMEDIES

you think, considering what has been happening, it is
high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot ?'

The landlord looked involuntarily round the room
for a possible spy. ' Guard your tongue !' he mur-
mured, terror-stricken.

David laughed on. ' You, my friend, shall be my
first pupil.'

' God forbid ! And I must beg you to find other
lodgings.'

David smiled grimly at this first response to his
mission. ' I dare say I shall find another stove,' he
said cheerfully — at which the landlord, who had never
in his life taken such a decisive step, began to think he
had gone too far. ' You will take the advice of a man
who knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise,
' and throw all those crazy notions into the river where
you cast your sins at New Year. A young, fine-
looking man like you ! Why, I can find you a Shidduch
(marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your
life.'

' Ha ! ha ! ha ! How do you know I'm not
married ?'

1 Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly.
Come, let me take you in hand ; my commission is a
very small percentage of the dowry.'

4 Ah, so you're a regular Shadchan ' (marriage-
broker).

* And how else should I live ? Do you think I get
fat on this inn ? But people stay here from all towns
around ; I get to know a great circle of marriageable
parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the
ordinary Shadchan.9

4 But I am so link ' (irreligious).

SAMOOBORONA 381

' Nu ! Let your ear-locks grow — the dowry grows
with them.' Mine host had quite recovered his greasy
familiarity.

' I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with
a sudden thought. ' But if you care to introduce me
to Tinowitz, you will not fail to profit by it, if the thing
turns out well.'

The landlord rubbed his hands. ' Now you speak
like a sage.'

Ill

Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and sur-
veyed the suitor disapprovingly. And disapproval did
not improve his face— a face in whose grotesque
features David read a possible explanation of his surplus
stock of daughters.

' I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-
factor said. ' Nor is it possible to give you my youngest
daughter. I have other plans. Even the eldest — —

David waved his hand. ' I told my landlord as
much. Am I a Talmud-sage that I should thus
aspire ? Forgive and forget my Chutzpah (impu-
dence) !'

' But the eldest — perhaps — with a smaller dowry '

' To tell the truth, Panie Tinowitz, it was the landlord
who turned my head with false hopes. I came here
not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals !'

The corn-factor gasped, c Funerals !'

' A pogrom is threatened '

' Open not your mouth to Satan !' reprimanded Tino-
witz, growing livid.

382 GHETTO COMEDIES

1 If you prefer silence and slaughter ' said David,

with a shrug.

' It is impossible — here !'

' And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and
thirty-eight other towns ?'

' In those towns there must have been bad
blood ; here Jew and Russian live together like
brothers.'

'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many
peaceful years while Cain tilled the ground and Abel
pastured his sheep.'

The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tino-
witz than a wilderness of arguments.

' Then, what do you propose ?' came from his white
lips.

' To form a branch of the Samooborona. You
must first summon a meeting of householders.'

' What for ?'

' For a general committee — and for the expenses.'

4 But how can we hold a meeting ? The police '

' There's the synagogue.'

' Profane the synagogue !'

' Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when
there was danger ?'

' Yes, but to pray.'

* We will pray by pistol.'
' Guard your tongue !'

* Guard your daughters.'

4 The Uppermost will guard them.'

' The Uppermost guards them through me, as He
feeds them through you. For the last time I ask you,
will you or will you not summon me a meeting of house-
holders ?'

SAMOOBORONA 383

' You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you
will not be my son-in-law.'

Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over.
David was to call the next day.

When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook
himself to the corn-factor's house, he found it barred
and shuttered. The neighbours reported that Tino-
witz had gone off on sudden business, taking his wife
and daughters with him for a little jaunt.

IV

The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations,
however. David was promoted from the stove to the
bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had likewise
departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the
landlord had betrothed this young man to the second
of the Tinowitz girls, David divined that the corn-factor
had made sure of a son-in-law. His other compensa-
tion was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young
Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an
outlying village for the military lottery, and who proved
to be a carl after his own heart. Half the night the
young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they
might do for their people. EzekielXeven was indeed
an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare
farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun.
He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka, and by their
aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly
prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business
declared important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortu-

384 GHETTO COMEDIES

nately, be away at the drawing, but he promised to
hasten back to the meeting.

Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of
tea, and drifted upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniff-
ing peril and profit, and dismally apprehending pistol
lessons, left the inn to his wife, and stole up likewise
to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting fearfully
that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting,
he added that he was not out of sympathy with the
times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. Accordingly,
he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where,
with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a
Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's
oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off
at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed
over the two beds and the one chair, gripped one
another nervously. But David was used to oratory
under difficulties. He lived on the same terms with
the police as the most desperate criminals, and a
foreigner who should have witnessed the secret meetings
at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,
scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would
have imagined him engaged in a rebellion instead of
in an attempt to strengthen the forces of law and order.

He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn
them that the Black Hundreds were soon to be loosed
upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer must the Jew
go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when
smitten, had he turned the other cheek, only to get it
smitten too. They must defend themselves. He was
there to form a branch of the Samooborona. Browning
revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers
must be organized as a column of axe-bearers. There

SAMOOBORONA 385

would be needed also an ambulance corps, with ban-
dages, dressings, etc.

The shudder at the first mention of the pogrom was
not so violent as that which followed the mention of
bandages. Each man felt warm blood trickling down
his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the con-
scription ? The landlord at the window wiped the cold
beads off his brow, and was surprised to find his hand
not scarlet.

* Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out,
4 this is a Haman in disguise. To hold firearms is the
surest way of provoking '

4 1 don't say you shall hold firearms !' David inter-
rupted, 4 It is your young men who must defend the
town. But the Kahal (congregation) must pay the
expenses — say, ten thousand roubles to start with.'

4 Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols !' cried
Mendel the horse-dealer. 4 It is a swindle.'

David flushed. ' We have to buy three pistols for
every one we get safely into the town. But one re-
volver may save ten thousand roubles of property, not
to mention your life.'

' It will end our lives, not save them !' persisted the
timber-merchant. 4 This is a plot to destroy us !'

A growl of assent burst from the others.

4 My friends,' said David quietly. 4 A plot to destroy
you has already been hatched ; the question is, are you
going to be destroyed like rats or like men ?'

4 Pooh !' said the horse-dealer. 4 This is not the first
time we have been threatened, if not with death, at
least with extra taxes ; but we have always sent Shtad-
lonim (ambassadors). We will make a collection,
and the president of the Kahal shall go at once to the

25

386 GHETTO COMEDIES '

Governor, and present it to him ' — here Mendel winked
— ' to enable him to take measures against the pogrom.'

4 The Governor is in the plot,' said David.

' He can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant.

' Pogroms are more profitable than presents,' rejoined
David drily. l Let us rather prepare bombs.' A fresh
shudder traversed the beds and the chairs, and agitated
the window-curtain.

' Bombs ! Presents !' burst forth the old Rabbi.
' These are godless instruments. We are in the hands
of the Holy One — blessed be He ! The Shomer
(Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.'

' Neither does the Shochet (slaughterer) of Israel,'
said David savagely.

' Hush ! Epicurean !' came from every quarter at
this grim jest ; for the Shomer and the Shochet are the
official twain of ritual butchery.

The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning,
added, ' Brazen Marshallik (buffoon) !'

' I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' con-
cluded the Rabbi solemnly.

A breath of reassurance wafted through the room.
* And I, Rabbi,' said Gilt els the grocer, * will supply the
synagogue with candles to equal in length the graves
of all your predecessors.'

'May thy strength increase, Giitels!' came the uni-
versal gratitude, and the landlord at the window-
curtain drew a great sigh of relief.

' Still, gentlemen,' he said, ' if I may intrude my
humble opinion — Reb Mendel's advice is also good.
God is, of course, our only protection. But there can
be no harm in getting, lehavdil (not to compare them),
the Governors protection too.'

SAMOOBORONA 387

' True, true.' And the faces grew still cheerier.

' In God's name, wake up !' David burst forth. c In
Samooborona lies your only salvation. Give the money
to us, not to the Governor. We can meet and practise
in your Talmud-Torah Hall !'

' The holy hall of study !' gasped the Rabbi. ' Given
over to unlawful meetings !'

' The hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said
David grimly. ' Don't you see it is the safest place for
us ? The police associate it only with learned weak-
lings.'

' Hush, Haman !' said the timber-merchant, and rose
to go. David's voice changed to passion ; memories
of things he had seen came over him as in a red mist :
an old man scalped with a sharp ladle ; a white-hot
poker driven through a woman's eye ; a baby's skull
ground under a True Russian's heel. ' Bourgeois !' he
thundered, ' I will save you despite yourselves.' The
landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued
recklessly , ' Will you never learn manli '

They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held
him hand-gagged and struggling upon the bed.

Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There
was a blood-freezing instant in which all gave themselves
up for lost. Their grip on David relaxed. Then the
mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel Leven.

4 Blessed art thou who comest !' cried David, jumping
to his feet. ' You and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.'

' Alas !' Ezekiel groaned. ' I drew a low number —
I go to fight for Russia.'

25—2

338 GHETTO COMEDIES

Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the
Governor, but even before they were presented to him
the Rabbi, in mortal terror of that firebrand of a David,
had rushed to inquire whether Self -Defence was legal,
and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used
for drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with
firearms or in conclave for non-religious purposes
should be summarily shot. And so, when the Shtad-
lonim arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the
Governor was able to point out severely that if a
pogrom did occur they would have only themselves to
blame. The Jews of Milovka had begun to carry pistols
like revolutionaries ; they planned illegal assemblies
in halls ; was it to be wondered at if the League of True
Russians grew restive ? However, he would do his
best with these inadequate roubles to have extra precau-
tions taken, but let them root out the evil weeds that
had sprung up in their midst, else even his authority
might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the
loyal children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the
Ambassadors crept back with their empty money-bags.

Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody
to a meeting. His landlord had forbidden any more
gatherings in the inn, and his original audience would
have called as a deputation upon David to beg him to
withdraw from the town, but that might have been
considered a conspirative meeting. So one of the
Ambassadors was sent to inform the landlord instead.

' Don't you think I've already ordered him off my
premises ?'

SAMOOBORONA 389

' But he is still here !'

' Alas ! He threatens to shoot me — or anybody who
massers (informs),' said the poor landlord.

The Ambassador shivered.

' As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel !' added the
landlord reproachfully.

' No, no — of course not,' said the Ambassador.
* These fellows are best left alone ; they wear fuses under
their waistcoats instead of Tsitsith (ritual fringes).
Let us hope, however, a sudden death may rid us of him.'

* Amen,' said the landlord fervently.

Not that David had any reason for clinging to so
squalid a hostel. But his blood was up, and he took a
malicious pleasure in inflicting his perilous presence
upon his prudential host.

Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he con-
soled himself with the thought that the population was
best tackled by units. One fool or coward was enough
to infect or betray a whole gathering.

Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after
breakfast, and approached Erbstein the Banker.
Erbstein held up his hands. ' But I've just given a
thousand roubles to guard us from a pogrom /'

' That was for the Governor. Give me only a hun-
dred for Self-Defence.'

The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar.
' But our rights are bound to come in the end. We
can only get them gradually. Full rights now are non-
sense— impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what
you cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our
emancipation '

' I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.'
David grew impatient.

390 GHETTO COMEDIES

Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he
invariably replied. His success in finance had made
him an authority upon religion and politics.

' Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.

* I'd rather trust our revolvers.'

The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.

* An anarchist ! like my nephew Simon !'

David began to realize the limitations of the financial
intellect. He saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains
is even more difficult than to get cheques from their
pockets. Still, there was that promising scapegrace
Simon ! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to
earth in a cosy house near the town gate. Simon
practised law, it appeared, and his surname was
Rubensky.

The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusa-
tion of anarchism, laughed contemptuously. ' Bour-
geois ! Every idea that makes no money he calls
anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite
of an anarchist : I'm a socialist. I belong to the
P. P. S. We're not even revolutionary like the
S. R.'s.'

' I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. ' I
don't even know what all these letters stand for.'

Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.

8 S. R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists ; I belong
to the Polish Party of Socialism.'

' Ah !' said David, with an air of comprehension.
1 And I belong to the Jewish Party of Self -Defence ! I
hope you'll join it too.'

The young lawyer shook his head. ' A separate
Jewish party ! No, no ! That would be putting back
the clock of history. The non-isolation of the Jew is

I

SAMOOBORONA 391

an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation
must be worked out in common with Russia's.'

' Oh, then you agree with your uncle !'

' With that bourgeois ! Never ! But we are
Poles of the Mosaic Faith — Jewish Poles, not Polish
Jews.'

' The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'

' And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.

' But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reac-
tionaries,' said David passionately, ' and then both will
trample on the Jews. Didn't the Hungarian Jews join
Kossuth ? And yet after Hungary's freedom was
won '

Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and
he introduced David smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary.
The young women — sober-clad students from a Swiss
University — opened wide shocked eyes.

'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonder-
ingly.

' Would you have me stand by and see our people
murdered ?'

' Certainly,' she said, '.'rather than see the Zeitgeist
set back. The unconditional historic necessity will
carry us on of itself towards a better social state.'

' There you go with your Marx and your Hegel !'
cried Simon's sister. ' I object to your historic mate-
rialism. With Fichte, I assert '

' She is an S. R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.

' Ah,' said David. ' Not a P. P. S. like you and your
wife.'

' Simon, did you tell him I was a P. P. S. ?' inquired
his wife indignantly.

' No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does

392 GHETTO COMEDIES

not understand modern politics. My wife is an S. D.,
I regret to say.'

' But I have heard of Social Democrats !' said David
triumphantly.

Simon's sister sniffed. c Of course ! Because they
are a bourgeois party — risking nothing, waiting pas-
sively till the Revoluton drops into their hands.'

' The name of bourgeois would be better applied to
those who include the landed peasants among their
forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.

' If I might venture to suggest,' said David sooth-
ingly, c all these differences would be immaterial if you
joined the Samooborona. I could make excellent use
of you ladies in the ambulance department.'

' Outrageous !' cried Simon angrily. ' Our place is
shoulder to shoulder with our fellow-Poles.'

Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the men-
tion of ambulances had awakened sympathy in her
S. R. soul. l You ought to look among your own Party,'
she said.

' My Party ?'

' The Ghetto reactionaries — Zionists, Territorialists,
Itoists, or whatever they call themselves nowadays.'

' Are there any here ?' cried David eagerly.

' One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly.
* Fortunately, when the police found they weren't
really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the meetings were
stopped.'

David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly
recommended two young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff,
who had at least the grace of Socialism.

But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea.
' Only the S. S.'s,' he said, ' can save Israel.'

SAMOOBORONA 393

4 What are S. S.'s ?' David asked.

4 Socialistes Sionistes.'

' But can't there be Socialism outside Zion ?'

* Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The
unconditional historic necessity is for a land, but not for
a particular land. Our Minsk members already call
themselves S. T.'s — Socialist Territorialists.'

' But while awaiting your territory, there are the
hooligans/ David reminded him. ' Simon Rubensky
thought you would be a good man for the self-defence
corps.'

' Join Rubensky ! A P. P. S. ! Never will I asso-
ciate with a bourgeois like that !'

' He isn't joining.'

The S. S. hesitated. ' I must consult my fellow-
members. I must write to headquarters.'

' Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowa-
days.'

' But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.

David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved
to be a doctor.

' I want to get together a Samooborona branch,' he
explained. ' Herr Grodsky has half promised —

* That bourgeois !' cried Lerkoff in disgust. ' We
can have nothing to do with traitors like that !'

' Why are they traitors ?' David asked.

' All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion
must jealously guard the sacred flame of Socialism and
Nationality, since only in Palestine can our social
problem be solved.'

c Why only in Palestine ?' inquired David mildly.

The P. Z. glared. ' Palestine is an unconditional
historic necessity. The attempt to form a Jewish

394 GHETTO COMEDIES

State elsewhere can only result in failure and disap-
pointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads
them to Palestine ? No less than four thousand have
gone there this year.'

' And a hundred and fifty thousand to America.
How about that folk-instinct ?'

' Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an
Americanist Assimilator.'

* I am no more an A. A. than I am a Z. Z.,' said David
tartly, adding with a smile, ' if there is such a thing as
aZ. Z.'

' Would to Heaven there were not !' said Lerkoff
fervently. ' It is these miserable Zioni-Zionists, with
their incapacity for political concepts, who '

Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few
incongruous telephones, and one of these now started
ringing violently in Dr. Lerkoff's study.

'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is
a man who combines all the worst qualities of the
Z. Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also imagines he has a
throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs he
deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably
with his patient, and said he would come instantly.

' Hasn't he the disease, then ?' asked David.

' He has no disease except too much vanity and too
much money.'

* While you cure him of the first, I should like to try
my hand at the second,' said David laughingly.

' Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'
4 You I don't ask for money, but your medical ser-
vices would be invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'

' Milovka to the deuce !' cried Lerkoff. ' Our future
lies not in Russia.'

SAMOOBORONA 395

' I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army
surgeon.'

* Next year — in Jerusalem !' replied the doctor airily.

VI

Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while
he saw Herr Cantberg professionally. There was an
Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room, betiding a piety
and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff
reappeared chuckling.

' He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he
said.

' You have told him ?'

* He told me ; he always knows everything. You
are a baptized police spy, posing as a P. P. S. I sup-
pose he's heard of your visit to Herr Rubensky.'

' But I shall undeceive him !'

' Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his
vanity would cost you dear. Go in ; I did not tell him
you were the young man he was telling me of. I
must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. ' Don't
forget he's the bourgeois type of Zionist ; his object
is not to create the future, but to resurrect the dead
past.'

' And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't
you ?' But the doctor was gone.

The Mizrachi Z. Z. proved unexpectedly small in
stature and owl-like in expression ; but his ' Be seated,
sir — be seated ; what can I do for you ?' had the grand
manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.

396 GHETTO COMEDIES

' It is something I propose to do for you,' he said
bluntly. * Milovka is in danger.'

c It is, indeed,' said the M. Z. Z. * When men like
Dr. Lerkoff (in whose company I was sorry to see you)
command a hearing, it is in deadly danger. An excel-
lent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying :
<{ Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he
calls himself a Zionist ! Bah ! he's more danegrous
than that young renegade spy who dubs himself P. P. S.'

' But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David un-
easily.

. Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. ' He'd
introduce vaccination and serum-insertions instead of
the grand old laws. As if any human arrangmement
could equal the wisdom of Sinai ! And he actually
scoffs at the Restoration of the Sacrifices !'

4 But do you propose to restore them ?' David was
astonished.

The owl's eyes shone. ' What have we sacrificed our-
selves for, all these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices ?
What has sanctified and illumined the long night of
our Exile except a vision of the High Priest in his
jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of our
Holy Temple ? Now at last the vision begins to take
shape, the hope of Israel begins to shine again. Like
a rosy cloud, like a crescent moon, like a star in the

desert, like a lighthouse over lonely seas '

The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine
frenzy disregarded the ringing, but it jangled his meta-
phors. ' But, alas ! our people do not see clearly !' he
broke off. ' False prophets, colossally vain — may their
names be blotted out ! — confuse the foolish crowd.
But the wheat is being sifted from the chaff, the fine

SAMOOBORONA 397

flour from the bran, the edible herbs from the evil weeds,
ind soon my people will see again that only I '

The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused
to buy furs at the price it demanded, he resumed :
' Territorialist traitors mislead the masses, but in so
[ar as they may bring relief to our unhappy people, I
wish them Godspeed.'

' But what relief can they bring ?' put in David im-
patiently. ' Without Self-Defence—

' Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred
people with fever and famine on some savage shore.
But let them ; it will all be to the glory of Zionism '

' How so ?' David asked, amazed.

' It will show that the godless ideals of materialists
can never be realized, that only in its old home can
Israel again be a nation. Then will come the moment
for Me to arise '

' But the English came from Denmark. And they're
nation enough !'

The owl blinked angrily. ' We are the Chosen People
— no historic parallel applies to us. As the dove re-
turned to the ark, as the swallow returns to the lands
of the spring, as the tide returns to the sands, as the
stars '

* Yes, yes, I know,' said David ; ' but where is there
room in Palestine for the Russian Jews ?'

' Where was there room in the Temple for the millions
who came up at Passover ?' retorted Herr Cantberg
crushingly.

The telephone here interposed, offering the furs
cheaper.

' A godless Bundist !' the owl explained between
the deals.

398 GHETTO COMEDIES

'A Bundist P David pricked up his ears. From
the bravest revolutionary party in Russia he could
surely cull a recruit or two. c Who is he ?'

The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle
of cunning. ' Oh, I can't betray him ; after all, he's a
brother-in-Israel. Not that he behaves as such,
opposing our candidate for the Duma ! Three hundred
and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly.
' Not a kopeck more. Eh ? What ? He's rung off,
the blood-sucker P He rang him up again. David
made a note of the number.

' But what have you Zionists to do with the Parlia-
ment in Russia ?' he inquired of the owl.

But the owl was haggling with the telephone.
' Three hundred and fifteen ! What ! Do you want to
skin me, like your martins and sables ?'

' You are busy,' interposed David, fretting at the
waste of his day ' I shall take the liberty of calling
again.'

A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist's shop,
and David hurried off to enlist him. The shopkeeper
proved, however, so corpulent and bovine that David's
heart sank. But he began bluntly : ' I know you're
a Bundist.'

' A what ?' said the fur-dealer.

David smiled. ' Oh, you needn't pretend with me ;
I'm a fighter myself.' He let a revolver peep out of his
hip-pocket.

' Help ! Gewalt /' cried the fur-dealer.

A beardless youth came running out of the back
room. David laughed. ' Herr Cantberg told me that
you were a Bundist,' he explained to the shop-keeper.
' And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was

SAMOOBORONA 399

warned Herr Cantberg is always wrong. Good-
morning.'

' Stop !' cried the youth. 'Go in, Reb Yitzchok ;
let me deal with this fire-eater.' And as the corpulent
man retired with an improbable alacrity, he continued
gravely : ' This time Herr Cantberg was not more than a
hundred versts from the truth.'

David smiled. ' You are the Bundist.'

' Hush ! Here I am the son-in-law. I study
Talmud and eat Rest (free food). What news from
Warsaw ?'

' I want both you and your father-in-law,' said David
evasively — c his money and your muscles.'

' He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly
what I squeeze out of Cantberg.' The youth permitted
himself his first smile. 'When he deals with that
bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to
stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the
extra roubles we extort. But as for myself, my life,
of course, is at the disposal of headquarters.'

David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He
felt a little embarrassment in explaining that head-
quarters to him meant Samooborona, not Bund. The
youth's countenance changed completely.

4 Defend the Jews !' he cried contemptuously.
' What have we to do with the Jewish bourgeoisie ?'

' The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not ?'

' Merely because we found the rest of the Revolu-
tionary body too clumsy for words. It was always
getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed, its leaders
buried. So we split off, the better to help our fellow-
working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a
Jewish party. We have the whole Russian Revolution

400 GHETTO COMEDIES

on our shoulders ; how can we throw away our lives for
the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto ? Then there are
the elections at hand — I have to work for the Left.
Ah, here come some of our bourgeois ; ask them, if you
like. I will keep my father-in-law out of the shop.'

Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third
disconnected, but on their heels. With five Jews the
concourse soon became a congress.

One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive
Pole. He mistook David for a Zionist, and denounced
him for a foreigner.

' We of the P. P. P.,' he said, ' will peacefully acquire
equal rights with our fellow-Poles — nay, we shall be
allowed to becomes Poles ourselves. But you Zionists
are less citizens than strangers, and if you were logica^
you would all '

' Where's your own logic ?' interrupted the discon-
nected man. ' Why don't you join the P. P. N. at
once ?'

The Progressive Pole frowned. ' The Nationalists !
They are anti-Semites. I'd as soon join the League of
True Russian Men.'

' And do you trust the P. P. P. ?' his companion
asked him. ' I tell you, Nathan, that only in the
Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief in the
equality of all nationalities '

' If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,' David
intervened desperately, ' you must join the Samoo

* I fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the
Bundist, not unkindly. He added with a sneer :
' These gentlemen of the P. P. P. and the P. P. N. and
the P. P. D. are all good Poles.'

' Good Poles !' echoed David no less bitterly. ' And

SAMOOBORONA 401

the Poles voted en bloc to keep every Jewish candidate
out of the Duma.'

' Even so we must be better Poles than they,'
sublimely replied the member of the P. P. P. ' We are
joining even the Clerical Parties of the Right for the
good of our country. And now that the Party of

National Concentration '

' Go to the Labour Parties,' advised the P. D.
' There you may perchance find sturdy young men with
the necessary Ghetto taint.' Of the four great Labour
Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P. S. D. as
the most promising for David's purposes. ' Not the
Bolshewiki faction,' he added, ' but the Menshewiki.
Recruits might also be found in the Proletariat or the
P.P.S.-

4 No, I've tried the P. P. S.,' said David. ' But at
any rate, gentlemen, since you must all see that the
defence of our own lives is no undesirable object, a
little contribution to our funds

A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was
scarcely credible that only four men were speaking.
All explained elaborately that they had their own Party
Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates
for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ.

; You see,' said the Bundist, ' your only chance lies
with the men of no Party, who have only their own
bourgeois pleasures.'

' Are there such ?' asked David eagerly.

A universal laugh greeted this inquiry.

' Alas, too many !' everybody told him. ' Our people
are such individualists.'

4 But where are these individualists ?' cried David
desperately.

26

402 GHETTO COMEDIES

As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by
the laughter, crept in again.

4 You still here !' he murmured to David, taken aback.

1 Yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for Jewish
Self-Defence '

4 Jewish Emancipation !' cried the fur-dealer. ' Why
didn't you say so at first ?' He put his hand in his
pocket. ' That's my Party — or rather the National
Group in it, the Anti -Zionist faction.'

The stern Bundist laughed. 'No, he doesn't mean
he's a J. E. even of the other faction.'

His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket.

David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. ' Why
did you interfere ? Perhaps my way may prove the
shortest to Jewish Emancipation.'

His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-
dealer shook his head. ' I belong also to the Promo-
tion of Education Party — I am for peaceful methods,'
he announced.

' So I perceived,' said David drily.

To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address
of a man who kept aloof from Polish politics — a
bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by name, who might
just as well be killed off in the Samooborona.

But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist.
David imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-
Territorialist Grodsky, who had half promised

* Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-
screamer !' he screamed. ' He's worse than the hysterical
Zionists. It is a territory we need, not Socialism.'

' I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.'

' The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of
our own.'

' Five and a quarter million of us ? Why, if two

SAMOOBORONA 403

ships — one from Libau for the north, and one from
Odessa for the south — sailed away every week, each
bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over
a quarter of a century. And by that time a new genera-
tion of us would have grown up.'

The Territorialist looked uneasy.

' Besides,' David continued, ' what new country
could receive us at the rate of two hundred thousand a
year ? It would be a cemetery, not a country.'

The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. ' Why didn't
you say at first you were a bourgeois ? The uncon-
ditional historic necessity which has created the I.T.O.
may drive at what pace it will ; enough that as soon as
our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to
be in the first shipload.'

' Have you this land, then ?'

' Not yet. We've only had time to draw up the Con-
stitution. No Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines.
But Democracy. Hereditary privileges will be abol—

' But what land is there ?'

' Surely there are virgin lands.'

' Even the virgin lands are betrothed !' said David.
' And if there was one still without a lord and master,
it would probably be a very ugly and sickly virgin.
And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the mean-
time let me teach you to fire a pistol.'

' With all my heart — but merely to shoot wild beasts.'

' That is all I am asking for,' said David grimly.

Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called
upon a tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and
asked for a subscription to buy revolvers.

The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with
a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently

26 — 2

404 GHETTO COMEDIES]

against such materialistic measures. Let them put
their trust in Cultur I To talk Hebrew — therein lay
Israel's real salvation. Let little children once again
lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea — that was true
Zionism.

' Then don't you want the Holy Land ?' asked the
astonished David.

' Merely as a centre of Cultur. Merely as a Uni-
versity where Herbert Spencer may be studied in the
tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is bourgeois
Zionism. Political Zionism ? Economic Zionism ?
Pah ! Mere tawdry imitations of heathen politics !'
' Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists !'
' Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of
mind. We want Culture — not Agriculture ; we want
the evolutionary efflorescence of Israel's inner per-
sonality '

David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who
declared that Zionism was a caricature of true Nation-
alism, and Territorialism a cheap philanthropic sub-
stitute for it.

' Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation ?'
David asked.

' I will — when we are on our own soil. Your corps
is a mere mockery of the military concept.'

David found no more comfort in his interview with
the member of the L. A. E. R., who was convinced that
only in the League for the Advancement of Equal
Rights lay the Jew's true security. It was the one party
whose success was sure, the only one based upon an
unconditional historic necessity.

David's morning was not, however, to pass without
the discovery of a man of no Party. And, strangely
enough, he owed his find to the headache these in-

SAMOOBORONA 405

numerable Parties caused him. For, going into a
chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-
bearded Jew whose genial face emboldened him to
solicit a stock of bandages and antiseptics — in view of
a possible pogrom.

' But the pogroms are over,' cried the chemist. ' They
were but the expiring agonies of the old order. The
reign of love is at hand, the brotherhood of man is
beginning, and all races and creeds will henceforth live
at peace under the new religion of science.'

David's headache rose again truimphant over the
powder. Even a partisan would be easier to convince
than this sort of seer.

* Why, a pogrom is planned for Milovka !'

* Impossible ! Europe would not permit it. America
would prohibit it. Did you not see the protest even in
the Australian Parliament ? Look on your calendar ;
we have reached the twentieth century, even according
to the Christian calculation.'

David returned hopelessly to his inn.

Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the
great stove. Before even ordering dinner, he made a
last desperate attempt to save his morning.

' Me join a Jewish Self -Defence !' The burly Jew
laughed loud and heartily. ' Why, I'm a True Be-
liever !'

' A Meshummad /' David gasped. Modern as he was,
the hereditary horror at the baptized apostate over-
came him.

' Yes — 7'm safe enough,' the Convert laughed. ' I've
taken the cold-water cure. Besides, I'm the censor of
Milovka !'

* Eh ?' David looked like a trapped animal. The
censor smiled on. ' Don't scowl at me like the other

406 GHETTO COMEDIES

pious zanies. After all, you're an enlightened young
man — a violinist, they tell me ; you can't take your
Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism.
Come — have a glass of vodka.'

' Then, you won't inform ?' David breathed.

' Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep
your pistols out of print. If my own skin is safe, that
doesn't mean I'm made of stone like these Tartar
devils. Landlord, the vodka. We'll drink confusion
to them.'

' I — I have none,' stammered the landlord. ' I
haven't the right.'

4 There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-
humouredly.

The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.

1 But the idea of asking me to join the Self-Defence !'
chuckled the burly Jew. ' You might as well ask me
to play the violin !' he added with a wink.

David felt this was the first really sympathetic
hearer he had met that morning.

VII

The vodka and a good three-course dinner (Plotki
for fish, Lockschen for soup, and Zrazy for joint) brought
David new courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.

This time he sought the market-place— a badly-
paved square, bordered with small houses and con-
gested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned crowd, amid
which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger
generation. He had hitherto* addressed himself to the
classes — he would hear the voice of the people.

SAMOOBORONA 407

On every side the voice babbled of the Duma —
babbled happily, as though the word was a new re-
ligious charm or a witch's incantation. Crude political
conversations broke out amid all the business of the
mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be
answered :

A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue
with the vendor.

' We must put our trust in the Constitutional Demo-
crats.'

' And why in the Cadets ? Give me the Democrats.'

* Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.'
(This came from the Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening
fish at the next stall.)

' For shame, Rebbitzin! Put not your trust in Princes.'

The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter — a
fuzzy-headed butcher-boy.

1 Miserable Monarchists !' he sneered. ' We Jews
will have no peace till the Republicans '

6 A Republic without Socialism !' interrupted a girl
with a laundry basket. ' What good's that ? Wait
till the N. S.'s '

' The D. R.'s are the only ' interrupted a phylac-
tery-pedlar.

' And who but the Labour group promises equal
rights to all nationalities ?' interrupted a girl in spec-
tacles. ' Trust the Tfudowaja '

' To the devil with the Labour Parties !' said an old-
clo' man. ' Look how the Bundists have betrayed us.
First they were bone of our bone ; now it is they who
by their recklessness provoke the pogroms?

The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the
stall. ' There is only one party to trust, and that's
the C. D.'s,' he repeated.

4o8 GHETTO COMEDIES

' Bourgeois !' simultaneously hissed the Republican
youth and the Socialist lass.

* My children !' It was the bland voice of Moses the
Shamash (beadle). ' Violence leads to naught. Even
the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As a member of
the Party of Peaceful Regeneration '

' Peaceful Regeneration ?' shouted the blacksmith.
' A Jew ally himself with the Reactionary Right, with
the !'

A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried
stalls. The Jews scattered before him like dogs. The
member of the P. P. R. crawled under a barrow.
Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral
when the Cossack had disappeared.

' Peaceful Regeneration !' he cried. ' There will be
no Regeneration for you till you have the courage to
leave Russian politics alone and to fight for your-
selves.'

* Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.

1 No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the
minimum — that we save our own lives.'

It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews,
like the rich Russian Jews, were largely occupied in
saving the world, or, at least, Holy Russia. Crushed by
such an excess of Christianity, David wandered round
the market-place, looking into the bordering houses.
In one of the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping
at shoes, surrounded by sprawling children.

' Peace be to you,' called David.

' Peace have I always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily.

David looked at the happy dirty children ; he had
seen their like torn limb from limb. ' But have you
thought of the danger of a pogrom ?' he said.

' I have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler.

The Jews scattered before him like dogs.

SAMOOBORONA 409

c But we Chassidim have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi,
who has power over all the spheres, will utter a word,
and '

4 A Tsaddik (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last
pogrom,' said David brutally. ' You must join a Self-
Defence band.'

The cobbler ceased to tap. c What ! Go for a
soldier ! When the Rebbe caused me to draw a high
number !'

' Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from
Russia. We must all join together !'

' Me join the Misnagdim /' cried the cobbler in horror.
' Never will I join with those who deny the Master-of
the-Name.'

David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart
Jew lounging at a neighbouring door. He moved
towards him, and broached the subject afresh. The
lounger shook his head. ' You may persuade that
foolish Chassid,"1 said he, c but you cannot expect the
rest of us to join with these heretics, these godless,
dancing dervishes, who are capable even of saying the
afternoon prayer in the evening !'

In the next house lived a Maskil (Intellectual), who
looked up from his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he
could be associated with a squad of young ignoramuses.
His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from another
community. The Karaite pointed out that Self-
Defence was unnecessary in his case, as his sect was
scarcely regarded by the authorities as Jewish. There
were other motley Jews living round the market-
place— a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with
the Polish ' sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigma-
tized by a Pole as ' peel-barley,' in scarification of his
reputedly stingy diet. A man from Odessa dismissed

410 GHETTO COMEDIES

them both as ' cross-heads.' It was impossible to
unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary
and heart-sick, he returned towards the inn.

VIII

But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of
Jewish boys pouring out of the primary school. They
seemed to range in years between eight and twelve,
but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and
though the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter
which accompanies the exodus of cramped and muted
pupils, the normal elements of joyousness, of horse-
play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was
a common agitation that loosed all these little tongues
and set all these little ears listening to the passionate
harangues of ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home,
the schoolboys lingered in knots round their favourite
orators. A premature gravity furrowed all the childish
foreheads.

With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar,
and after listening for a few minutes to the lad's
tirade against the ' autocracy of the school director '
and the * bureaucratic methods of the inspector,' it
dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his
own landlord's son.

' Hullo, Kalman !' he cried in surprise.

' Hullo, comrade !' replied the boy graciously.

' So you're a revolutionary, eh ?' said David, smiling.

' All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,' replied
the boy gravely.

' Then you're not so peaceful as papa !'

SAMOOBORONA 411

The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He
blushed furiously, and hung his head in shame of his
Moderate parent.

' Never mind, Comrade Kalman,' said another boy,
slapping his shoulder consolingly. 'We've all got
some shady relative or another.'

A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situa-
tion. Turning his head, David found all the childish
eyes converged upon a single figure, a bulging-headed
lad who had sprung into a sudden position of eminence
— upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse
of Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon
his upper lip suggested that he must be nearing fifteen,

' Comrades !' he was crying. ' In my youth I
myself was head boy at this school of yours, but even
in those old days there was the same brutal autocracy.
Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join
the Syndical Anarchists.'

More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The
members of the Junior Bund waved their satchels
frenziedly. Only the landlord's son stood mute and
frowning.

' You don't agree with him,' said David

* No/ answered the little Bundist gravely. * I follow
Comrade Berl. But this fellow is popular because he
was expelled from the Warsaw gymnasium as a suspect/

' You must strike !' repeated the juvenile agitator.
* A strike is the only way of impressing the proletarian
psychology. You must all swear to attend school
no more till your demands are granted.'

' We swear !' came from all sides in a childish treble.
But the frown on the brow of the landlord's son grew
darker.

' It is well, comrades,' said the orator, ' Your sac-

412 GHETTO COMEDIES

cess will be a lesson to your elders, too. Only by
applying the Marxian philosophy of history can we
upset the bourgeois Weltanschauung.'

The landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box
with one angry bound and stood beside the agitator.
' Marx is an old fogey !' he shouted, ' What's the
good of a passive strike ? Let us make a demon-
stration against the director ; let us '

' Who told you that ?' sneered the orator. ' Com-
rade Berl or Comrade Schmerl ?'

The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. ' You
know SchmerFs a mere milk-blooded " Attainer," ' he
said angrily.

' Believe me,' was the soothing reply, ' even beyond
the Five Freedoms the boycott is a better c' Attainer "
than the bomb.'

' Traitor ! Bourgeois !' And a third boy jumped
upon the egg-box. He had red hair and flaming
eyes. 'If Russia is to be saved,' he shrieked, 'it will
be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom nor
by the Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, who
alone maintain the purity of the Social Revolutionary
programme, as it was before the party degenerated
into Maximalists and Mini— : — '

Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the
three orators, and they sprawled in equal ignominy.
But the storm was now launched. A score of the
schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion.
The unity necessary to the school strike was shattered
into fragments.

David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic
mob of youngsters, who were yet not all apes and
parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had always had
its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit,

SAMOOBORONA 413

prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had
its precocious politicians and its premature sociolo-
gists. He was tempted for a moment to try his
recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist, whose
red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed
cruel to add to the lad's risks. Besides, had not the
boy already proclaimed — like his seniors — that Russia,
not Jewry, was to be saved ?

It was an hour of no custom when he got back to the
inn, so that he was scarcely surprised to find host and
hostess alike invisible. He sat down, and began to
write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but a
mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any
concentration upon his task. Presently he threw
down his pen, and went to find out what was the
matter. The noises drew him downwards.

The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his
light.

' It's only I,' said David.

The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar
strewn with iron bars, instruments, boxes, and a con-
fused heap of stones.

' Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.

' No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar —
also provisioning the loft.'

' Samooborona ?' said David.

' Precisely — and a far more effective form than
yours, my young hot-head.'

' Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He
went back to his Report. He was glad to think that
the little Bundist had an extra chance. After all, he
had achieved something, he would save some lives.
Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's
way — passive Samooborona was better than none.

4M GHETTO COMEDIES

IX

But the Report refused to write itself. It was too
dismal to confess he had not collected a kopeck or one
recruit. He picked up a greasy fragment of a Russian
newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the Octo-
brists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That
reminded him of Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden
him put his trust in them. Would the Banker be more
susceptible now, under this disillusionment ? Alas ! the
question was, could a Banker be disillusioned ? To be
disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and
Bankers, like Popes, were infallible.

David bethought himself instead of the owlish
Mizrachi, his visit to whom had been left unfinished.

He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the
house with the Ark and the telephone.

But as he reached Cantberg's door it opened sud-
denly, and a young man shot out.

' Never, father !' he was shrieking — ' Never do I enter
this house again.' And he banged the door upon the
owl, and rushed into David's arms.

' I beg your pardon,' he said.

' It is my fault,' murmured David politely. ' I was
just going to see your father.'

' You'll find him in a fiendish temper. He cannot
argue without losing it.'

' I hope you've not had a serious difference.'

' He's such a bigoted Zionist — he cannot understand
that Zionism is ein iiberwundener StandpunktS

' 1 know.'

' Ah !' said the young man eagerly. ' Then you can

SAMOOBORONA 415

understand how I have suffered since I evolved from
Zionism.'

4 What are you now, if I may ask ?'

c The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be —
a Sejmist, of course !'

' A Jewish Party ?' asked David eagerly. After all
the enthusiasm for Russian politics and world politics
he was now pleased with even this loquacious form of
Self-Defence.

1 Come and have a glass of tea ; I will tell you all
about it,' said the young man, soothed by the prospect
of airing his theories. ' We will go to Friedman's inn
— the University Club, we call it, because the intellec-
tuals generally drink there.'

4 With pleasure,' said David, sniffing the chance of
recruits. ' But before we talk of your Party I want to
ask whether you can join me in a branch of the Samoo-
borona.'

The young man's face grew overclouded.

4 Our Party cannot join any other,' he said.

4 But mine isn't a Party — a corps.'

4 Not a Party ?'

4 No.'

4 But you have a Committee ?'

* Yes— but only—

4 And Branches ?'

4 Naturally, but simply '

4 And a Party-Chest ?'

4 The money is only '

4 And Conferences ?'

4 Of course, but merely '

4 And you read Referats

' Not unless '

4 Surely you are a Party !'

416 GHETTO COMEDIES

' I tell you no. I want all Parties.'

4 I am sorry. But I'm too busy just now to consider
anything else. Our Party-Day falls next week, and
there's infinite work to be done.'

' Work !' cried David desperately. ' What work ?'

' There will be many great speeches. I myself
shall not speak beyond an hour, but that is merely
impromptu in the debate. Our Referat- speakers
need at least two hours apiece. We did not get
through our last session till five in the morning. And
there were scenes, I tell you !'

1 But what is there to discuss ?'

1 What is there to discuss ?' The Sejmist looked
pityingly at David. ' The great question of the Duma j
elections, for one thing. To boycott or not to boycott. I
And if not, which candidates shall we support ? Then
there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian
Parliament — that is our great principle. Moreover, as j
a comparatively new Party, we have yet to thresh out
our relations to all the existing Parties. With which
shall we form blocs in the elections ? While most are
dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people
and opposed to the evolution of historic necessity, with
some we may be able to co-operate here and there,
where our work intersects.'

' What work ?' David insisted again.
' Doesn't our name tell you ? We are the Voz-
rozhdenie — the Resurrectionists — our work is an uncon-
ditional historic necessity springing from the evolution

of !'

The door of the inn arrested the Sej mist's harangue.
As he pushed it open, a babel of other voices made
continuance impossible. The noise came entirely from
a party of four, huddled in a cloud of cigarette-smoke

T)

SAMOOBORONA 417

near the stove. In one of the four David recognised the
tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant
seemed to have no recollection of David. He was still
expatiating upon the Individuality of Israel, which, it
appeared, was an essence independent of place and time.
He nodded, however, to the young Sejmist, observing
ironically :

' Behold, the dreamer cometh !'

' I a dreamer, forsooth !' The young man was vexed
to be derided before his new acquaintance. ' It is you
Achad-Haamists who must wake up.'

The tea- merchant smiled with a superior air. ' The
Vozrozhdenie would do well to study Achad-Haam's
philosophy. Then they would understand that their
strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not
self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't
you, Witsky ?'

Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. ' What
I said was,' he explained to the Sejmist, ' that in your
search for territorial-proletariat practice you Sej mists
have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S. S.'s
have sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial
theory. In our party alone do you find the synthesis
of the practical and the ideal. It alone '

' May I ask whom you speak for ?' intervened
David.

The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan
arty of Russia !' replied Witsky proudly.

4 Are you the newest ?' inquired David drily.

4 And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of
our social regeneration, it is because the unconditional
historic necessity '

The Sejmist interrupted sadly : ' I see that our

27

418 GHETTO COMEDIES

Conference will have to decide against relations with
you.'

' Pooh ! The S. D. A.'s will only be the stronger for
isolation. Have we not of ourselves severed our rela-
tions with the D. K.'s ? In the evolution of the forces
of the people '

' It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a
stranger,' put in his sallow, spectacled neighbour.
1 Or perhaps you misconceive the genetic moments of
your own programme. What evolution is clearly
leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'

' But we also say ' began the other two.

The sallow, spectacled man waved them down
wearily. ' Who but the P. N D.'s are the synthesis of
the historic necessities ? We subsume the Conserva-
tive elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League
and of the Party of Real Politics with the Reform ele-
ments of the Democratic League and the Progressive
Democrats. Consequently

6 But the true Polish Party ' began Witsky.

' The Kolo Polskie (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,'
began the Sejmist. The three were talking at once.
Through the chaos a thin piping voice penetrated
clearly. It came from the fourth member of the
group — a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto
remained silently smoking.

' As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all
Parties,' he said, ' allow me to tell you, friend Witsky,
that your programme needs unification : it starts as
economic, and then becomes dualistic — first inductive,
then deductive.'

' Moj Panie drogi (my dear sir),' intervened David,
' if you sympathize with all Parties, you will join a corps
for the defence of them all.'

SAMOOBORONA 419

' You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees
with all Parties.'

David lost his temper at last. ' Gentlemen,' he
shouted ironically, ' one may sit and make smoke-rings
till the Messiah comes, but I assure you there is only
one unconditional historic necessity, and that is
Samooborona.'

And without drinking his tea — which, indeed, the
Resurrectionist had forgotten to order — he dashed into
the street.

X

He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish
injustice. He had hitherto taken scant notice of all
these Parties that had sprung up for the confusion of
his people — these hybrid, kaleidoscopic combinations of
Russian and Jewish politics — but as he fled from the
philosophers through the now darkening streets, his
every nerve quivering, it seemed to him as if the
alphabet had only to be thrown about like dice to give
always the name of some Party or other. He had a night-
mare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions,
each with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Conferences,
Party-Days, Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, each
differentiating itself with meticulous subtlety from all
the other Parties, each defining with casuistic minute-
ness its relation to every contemporary problem,
each equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators
speechifying through tumultuous nights.

Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible nebu-
lous welter in which his people found themselves, it

27 — 2

420 GHETTO COMEDIES

was not unnatural that each man should grope towards
his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was
equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of
theories came in both from the same lack of tangi-
bilities. Both peoples possessed nothing.

Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews
lay in identifying themselves with Russia. But then,
who could tell that the patriots who welcomed them
to-day as co-workers would not reject them when
the cause was won ? Perhaps there was no hope
outside preserving their own fullest identity. Poor
bewildered Russian Jew, caught in the bewilderments
both of the Russian and the Jew, and tangled up in-
extricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils !

The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable ; he must
make his account with them. How if he formed a
secret Samooborona Committee, composed equally of
representatives of all Parties ? But, then, how could he
be sure of knowing them all ? He might offend one by
omitting or miscalling it ; they formed and re-formed
like clouds on the blue. A new Party, too, might spring
up overnight. He might give deadly affront by ignor-
ing this Jonah's gourd. Even as he thus mused, there
came to him the voices of two young men, the one
advocating a P. P. L. — a new Party of Popular Liberty
— the other insisting that the new Volksgruppe of all
anti-Zionist Parties was an unconditional historic
necessity. He groaned.

It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through
the ill-paved alleys that a plague of doctors of philo-
sophy had broken out over the Pale, doctrinaires spin-
ning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting bitterly
against the slightest deviation from the pattern of
their webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action.

SAMOOBORONA 421

Was it, he wondered with a flash of sympathy, that
Israel was too great for Action ; too sophisticated a
people for so primitive and savage a function ; too
set in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization,
so that, even when Action was attempted, it was turned
and frozen into Philosophy ? Or was it rather that
eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had un-
fitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of
applying the whole brain-force to religious minutiae
led to a similar intellectualization of contemporary
problems — of the vast new material suddenly opened
up to their sharpened brains — but also because many of
these religious problems related only to the time when
Israel and his Temple flourished in Palestine ? The
academic leisure and scrupulous discrimination that
might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had been
imported into the burning present — into things that
mattered for life or death.

Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism
or Socialism, as the old argued over the ritual of burnt-
offerings whose smoke had not risen since the year 70
of the Christian era, or over the decisions of Babylonian
Geonim, no stone of whose city remained standing.
The men of to-day had merely substituted for the world
of the past the world of the future, and so there had
arisen logically-perfect structures of Zionism without
Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,
Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The
habit of actualities had been lost ; what need of them
when concepts provided as much intellectual stimulus ?
Would Israel never return to reality, never find solid
ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life ?

But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip
of wintry sky, David suddenly felt infinitely weary of

422 GHETTO COMEDIES

reality ; a great yearning came over him for that very
unreality, that very ' dead past ' in which pious Jewry
still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,
the jangle of politics and philosophies, the tohu-bohu of
his unhappy day ! He must bathe his soul in an hour's
peace ; he would go back like a child to the familiar
study-house of his youth, to the Beth Hamedrash
where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten
folios, and the youths rocked in their expository in-
cantations. There lay the magic world of fantasy and
legend that had been his people's true home, that had
kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen cen-
turies of tragedy — a watertight world into which no
drop of outer reality could ever trickle. There lay
Zion and the Jordan, the Temple and the Angels ;
there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over their
people. Perhaps the Milovka study -house boasted even
Cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions
and graduating for the Divine kiss. How infinitely
restful after the Milovka market-place ! No more, for
that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and
the horrible Modern.

He asked the way to the Beth Hamedrash. How
fraternally the sages and the youths would greet him !
They would inquire in the immemorial formula, ' What
town comest thou from ?' And when he told them,
they would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news
there was. And ' news,' David remembered with a
tearful smile, meant ' new interpretations of texts.'
Yes, this was all the ' news ' that ever ruffled that
peaceful world. Man lived only for the Holy Law ;
the world had been created merely that the Law might
be studied ; new lights upon its words and letters were
the only things that could matter to a sensible soul.

SAMOOBORONA 423

Time and again he had raged against the artificiality
of this quietist cosmos, accusing it of his people's
paralysis, but to-night every fibre of him yearned for
this respite from the harsh reality. He rummaged his
memory for ' news ' — for theological ingeniosities,
textual wire-drawings that might have escaped the
lore of Milovka ; and as one who draws nigh to a great
haven, he opened the door of the Beth Hamedrash, and,
murmuring ' Peace be to you/ dropped upon a bench
before an open folio whose commentaries and super-
commentaries twined themseves lovingly in infinite
convolutions round its holy text. Immediately he
was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and
ancients.

' Which Party are you of ?' they clamoured eagerly.

XI

The pogrom arrived. But it arrived in a new form
for which even David was unprepared. Perhaps in
consequence of the Rabbi's warning to the Governor,
Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian
paraphernalia of agents provocateurs, no hooligans with
false grey beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or
blasphemers. Artillery was calmly brought up against
the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were an enemy's
town.

As the shells began to burst over the close-packed
houses, David felt grimly that an economic Providence
had saved him from wasting his time in training
pistoliers.

The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and
saying his Vidui (death-bed confession), offered him

424 GHETTO COMEDIES

and his violin-case a place in the cellar, but he preferred
to climb to the roof, from which with the aid of a small
glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round
the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball
crashed through the chimney-pots at his side, but he
did not budge. His eyes were glued upon a figure he
had espied amid the cannon.

It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with
whom he had dreamed of Maccabean deeds. The new
conscript, in the uniform of an artilleryman, was
carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun.

1 Poor Ezekiel !' David cried. ' Yours is the most
humorous fate of all ! But have you forgotten there
is still one form of Samooborona left ?' And with an
ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself.

The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When
the bombardment was over, the peace of the devil lay
over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent were all the fiery
orators of all the letters of the alphabet ; silent the
Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers
of mankind ; silent the bourgeois and the philosophers,
the timber-merchants and the horse-dealers, the bankers
and the Bundists ; silent the Socialists and the Demo-
crats ; silent even the burly censor, and the careless
Karaite and the cheerful Chassid ; silent the landlor 1
and his revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar;
silent the Rabbi in his study, and the crowds in the
market-place.

The same unconditional historic necessity had over-
taken them all.

THE END

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFOKD.

PR Zangwill, Israel

5922 Ghetto comedies

University of Toronto Rob arts

13

HAriEs

ABIGAIL B SOME